I don't normally write posts about the Folger's performances, since I work there. HOWEVER, no one does Henry VIII and I want a chance to write about it because it combines my two favorite things: Shakespeare and Henry VIII's great matter!
The Ed staff read this play back in June to get an idea of what sort of play it was - none of us had read it before, and - it being classified as a collaboration - didn't know quite what to expect. We spent the whole time back-tracking to check names and titles, and goggling at the great discrepancies in time. The play, we decided, was sh*t. Shakespeare contributed some pretty great soliloquies, but Fletcher or whoever had the other pen really dropped the ball on a cohesive story. This conclusion was reinforced when our High School Fellowship Program read it in September, and also almost unanimously decided that it was crap.
This isn't news. Other, better, people have done the work of parsing out the collaborative efforts, the historical significance, and the implied intent of the play, so I have no need to go into the background. I wish the Dramaturg's notes on this one were online, but the best I can do is a link to our study guide.
Honestly, across the board the characters act as they may have in life - though the text gives them words they might never have uttered. The timeline of the text is also jerky and difficult to follow, with a lot a LOT of people describing action that's already happened elsewhere offstage. The way this cast relates news, however, is just as interesting as seeing it happen. Every act seems to end in a soliloquy about the fickleness of fate's wheel - yet each delivery is a testament to why we have brilliant, commanding voices in the Theatre. Buckingham about slayed me as he was carted off to be beheaded, and even Wolsey illicited a little pity from me as he accepted his fortune.
And the design.
No matter how much or little you care about design, you cannot, simply cannot, see this show without marveling at what this team accomplished. The costumes are sumptuous, the set a marvel, the lights appropriately moody and shadowy, the music epic, the sound incredible (it makes you feel like you are there in the dungeons or on the lawns!). Everything works together to create a court of secrets and intrigues - a tangled web of words, not unlike the confused text.
Admittedly, Director Robert Richmond cut about 2/3 of the text to give us a cohesive, well-plotted story with engaging characters, intensely moving performances, and the best use of the Folger's space I have ever seen.
I'm so excited to have seen this, and to get to see it again!
The Ed staff read this play back in June to get an idea of what sort of play it was - none of us had read it before, and - it being classified as a collaboration - didn't know quite what to expect. We spent the whole time back-tracking to check names and titles, and goggling at the great discrepancies in time. The play, we decided, was sh*t. Shakespeare contributed some pretty great soliloquies, but Fletcher or whoever had the other pen really dropped the ball on a cohesive story. This conclusion was reinforced when our High School Fellowship Program read it in September, and also almost unanimously decided that it was crap.
This isn't news. Other, better, people have done the work of parsing out the collaborative efforts, the historical significance, and the implied intent of the play, so I have no need to go into the background. I wish the Dramaturg's notes on this one were online, but the best I can do is a link to our study guide.
I went in dreading a tedious afternoon of speeches and costumes - what I got was the equivalent of being snatched away in the TARDIS to King Henry VIII's Court (sidenote, make that episode happen, Moffat) and witnessed all of these events first hand. In this case the Doctor is embodied in the addition of Will Sommers (Henry's fool) to the play - he demonstrates some action in dumbshows with puppets, stops time, and embodies half-a-dozen characters to move the plot along. Princess Mary, also not in the text, appears as a somber reminder of what Henry's unknowing cruelty did for his England's future when he thought he was working to protect it.
The text appears to glow with Elizabeth's praises - forgetting that she is a second female child for Henry and not the male heir he hoped for. It also elevates Anne Boleyn to new heights as a paragon of courtly virtue and innocence.
Ian Merrill Peakes as Henry VIII is crushed by the news of Elizabeth's gender. And Karen Peakes as Anne Boleyn has the slyest of small smiles even as she says aloud "I would never be a queen." The only character written true-to-life, it would seem, is Katharine of Aragon, embodied perfectly in Naomi Jacobsen.
And the design.
No matter how much or little you care about design, you cannot, simply cannot, see this show without marveling at what this team accomplished. The costumes are sumptuous, the set a marvel, the lights appropriately moody and shadowy, the music epic, the sound incredible (it makes you feel like you are there in the dungeons or on the lawns!). Everything works together to create a court of secrets and intrigues - a tangled web of words, not unlike the confused text.
Admittedly, Director Robert Richmond cut about 2/3 of the text to give us a cohesive, well-plotted story with engaging characters, intensely moving performances, and the best use of the Folger's space I have ever seen.
I'm so excited to have seen this, and to get to see it again!
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