Toronto Star, June 03, 2001
Prince of a play needs more polish
By: Richard Ouzounian
When the Campbells are coming, you can count on fine Shakespearean acting.
That's what you learn from the Stratford Festival production of Henry IV, Part One, which opened on Friday afternoon.
Patriarch Douglas Campbell is salty and splendid as Sir John Falstaff, the famous "fat knight" of legend, and his son Benedict bristles with passion as the usurping monarch of the title.
Add to this an always intelligent and frequently engaging performance from Graham Abbey as Prince Hal, and you have three points on which the show solidly rests.
Shakespeare's play is the first instalment in the trilogy of kingship that concludes with Henry V. Stratford is presenting all three this season, and it affords a unique opportunity to watch the growth of a monarch and a civilization.
Before the plays begin, Richard II has been toppled from his throne by Henry Bolingbroke, and the two parts of Henry IV deal with the attempts of those who loved Richard to restore the natural order of things.
While Henry is trying to hold on to his throne, his son, Hal, is living the low life in Eastcheap at the Boar's Head Tavern with Falstaff and his cronies.
Contrasted with Hal is the fiery Hotspur, a young man of passionate commitment who spearheads the movement to topple King Henry.
Shakespeare balances the high and the low, the worthy and the profligate, until every thread of the action comes together in the climactic battle of Shrewsbury. Along the way are some magnificent scenes, like the matched pair that lie at the centre of the play.
In the first, a jocular Hal and Falstaff imagine a confrontation between the dissolute prince and his royal father, alternating the roles. Douglas Campbell is prodigiously comic as the king, with a cushion instead of a crown perched ludicrously on his head. Then Abbey switches roles to become his own unforgiving father, and we see the burden of power sit uncomfortably on his shoulders.
Shortly after, we face the actual confrontation that Hal and Falstaff have mocked, and King Henry tears into his son for his behaviour.
Benedict Campbell is utterly masterful as he lets us see a man consumed with guilt over what he has done, with his anger directed more at himself than at his heir. It's an impressive piece of work.
But with such a magnificent play, and some first-rate acting going on, why does this production fail to be completely satisfying?
The answer lies in the unfocused and often gimmicky direction of Scott Wentworth, with its weeping female chorus, giant maps and other oddities. And in a play whose numerous genealogies and alliances are difficult enough for an audience to follow, why does he costume is cast in a variety of periods?
Abbey is in sleekly contemporary Queen St. black, while his father wears Edwardian clothes, and Falstaff looks appropriately 15th century.
Wentworth also hasn't helped the promising Jonathan Goad as Hotspur. Goad has real magnetism and a Ben Affleck kind of appeal, but he has been encouraged (or allowed) to play too much of his role with contemporary inflections that don't always work.
When Abbey and the Campbells are just left alone to act Shakespeare's text, we're on solid ground. But the more Wentworth adds, the less effective things become.
Here's hoping they all think of that as they work on Part Two (Stratford is calling it Falstaff), which opens on June 27.