Culture vultures, why not start 2014 off with a once- in- a-lifetime experience?
Counterintuitive as it may seem, the best arts way to ring in the New Year is to catch the very last performances of Shakespeare’s very last play at Suffolk’s Modern Theater. This Sunday the Actors’ Shakespeare Project (ASP) will end the run of its well-received production of a play now known as “Henry VIII,” but which originally bore the ironic title “All Is True.”
Written after Shakespeare’s probable official retirement from London as a fulltime playwright, “Henry VIII” may represent the collaboration between Shakespeare and his successor as principal dramatist for the Globe Theatre, John Fletcher.
Another big draw of the show is that it was directed by Tina Packer, the founder of Shakespeare and Company in Lenox. Though the Guinness Book of World Records has yet to confirm her title, Packer has directed more productions of Shakespeare’s plays than any other woman in history. ASP got her to helm this rarely done work because it was one of the few left on her bucket list.
Most of us know little about the historic Henry VIII except that he was a portly pleasure seeker who beheaded or otherwise disembarrassed himself of six wives. But since Shakespeare wanted to keep his head connected to his shoulders, he depicts Henry in a rosier light.
There’s a substantial disconnect between the sympathetic portrayal of court figures in the play and the facts that we know from history (and which Shakespeare’s audiences knew much better than we). Filled though it is with court intrigues, backstabbing and betrayals, the drama often glosses over the misdeeds of the high and mighty without apology. Like people today, Shakespeare’s audiences enjoyed the hoopla made about “the royals” and simultaneously knew it was a lot of majestic malarkey.
The most interesting figure is Cardinal Wolsey, a Roman Catholic prelate who behaves more imperiously than the king himself. Just as Wolsey’s scarlet robes draw eyes away even from the period finery of the members of the court, actor Robert Walsh dominates the production as this the most complexly drawn character in the play. Though often seen as the villain of the piece, he dies repentant and forgiven by those against whom he has plotted.
ASP Artistic Director Allyn Burrows infuses the ambiguously drawn Henry with vitality and power. Far from being dueling divas, Tamara Hickey as the slandered first queen Katherine and Kathryn Myles as her seemingly guileless replacement, Anne Boleyn, radiate equal measures of dignity and pathos.
Because Shakespeare was now writing for a company that could dazzle with special effects, large casts, and spectacular costumes, “Henry VIII” is known for requiring lavish spectacles like the dying Katherine’s vision of angels. With only 10 actors and a tight budget, ASP can’t quite match the knockout pageantry of the original.
Still, Shakespeare indirectly demonstrates that all the pomp and glitter of celebrities is a lot of empty show. Those who take the today’s media reports that “All Is True” with a large helping of salt will want to get to Suffolk’s Modern Theater before the run ends January 5.
