Toronto Star, 2002
Hip hurrah for Henry
By: Richard Ouzounian
Although it slides from being absolutely brilliant in Part I to pretty damn good in Part II, the Stratford Festival's production of Henry VI which opened on Saturday at the Tom Patterson Theatre is must-see viewing for anyone interested in exciting theatre.
Director Leon Rubin has taken the three parts of Shakespeare's early trilogy on the life and times of King Henry VI and turned it into two substantial episodes, played out with breathtaking attack against a bold, multi-leveled structure of steel.
The first, called Henry VI: Revenge In France (*****), deals with the early years of the young king who ascends to the throne as a mere child after the untimely death of his heroic father, Henry V.
At first, the enemy is outside, as we spend most of our time in France, trying to reclaim the rebellious land that Henry V conquered. Joan of Arc unites with the Dauphin and nearly succeeds in expelling the English from her home.
But in the end, the French are defeated, Joan is burned at the stake (in one of Rubin's most thrilling scenes) and the English return home where the houses of Lancaster and York begin the quarrel that will result in the War of the Roses.
Throughout this three-hour epic, Rubin's hand never wavers. There are battle scenes of sculptural beauty, violence that provokes horror without laughter and staging that illuminates the text at every turn.
Rubin moves ahead with confidence, allowing the complicated spiderweb of family histories to sort themselves out and trusting to his cast to put flesh on these frequently fleeting skeletons.
Seana McKenna is that Mistress of Invection, Margaret of Anjou, going in the course of the plays from an innocent bride to a bloodthirsty queen. She stalks the long, narrow stage of the Patterson like a tigress -- beautiful and horrible at the same time.
David Francis dominates the first part as Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the young king's guardian. Looking like a Puritan ahead of his time, he positively quivers with misguided intensity.
Brad Rudy breaks through with his finest work to date as both the hot-headed Talbot and the rock-solid Buckingham, Dan Chameroy impresses in a quick-changing variety of roles, and Michelle Giroux brings real stature of an other-worldly grace to Joan of Arc.
Thom Marriott proves an anchor for the entire enterprise with a massive interpretation of Richard, Duke of York. His journey takes him from noble servitude through vaulting ambition into a horrible death. Marriott is up to every step of the journey and it's amazing to see how he has risen quietly through the Stratford ranks, suddenly bursting forward when the time and the role were right.
A similar transformation has happened to Jonathan Goad, who sometimes seemed a bit over-parted by his roles last year. This charismatic young man's work as the Earl of Suffolk drives the narrative of Part I through to its bloody conclusion, with a combination of cold-blooded ambition for the crown and hot-blooded lust for McKenna's Queen Margaret. The way he juggles these emotions is superb.
Goad also scores big time with the way he begins Part II: Henry VI, Revolt In England (***) as Jack Cade, the demonic revolutionary. Goad's Jack Cade owes a lot to Jack Nicholson, with the shifty eyes, chilly smile and feverish intensity of the true psychotic.
Rubin has pulled out all the stops with this sequence, staging it throughout the theatre, making frank use of the audience and spicing it with an anachronistic but strangely appropriate humour.
It's a tremendous beginning to Part II, but it sets the bar too high and the rest gradually lessens in impact as the Duke of York's sons, who should drives things forward, drift disappointingly off course. Rami Posner's Edward is too full of bug-eyed lechery, Robert Hamilton's George is too complacently smug and Brandon Wicke's gentle Edmund is too soon murdered.
Haysam Kadri has some effective moments as Richard, Duke of Gloucester, but he doesn't seem ready to embrace the villainy of the part with the black-hearted glee that it demands.
Still the plays, after all, are called Henry VI, and you may be wondering by now how that central role is handled. Henry can be many things -- from a Christ figure to a spineless victim -- but in the end, Michael Therriault doesn't really offer us any of them.
He is beguilingly sweet in Part I as the naive victim of manipulation and his warning that "Forbear to judge for we are sinners all" just before the curtain led me to hope that he would prove to be the core of Part II.
Unfortunately, he does not grow in the role, falling into a bland sameness, and the epitaph for Part II rightly goes to Don Carrier's convincingly disillusioned Warwick, who says "Live we how we can, yet die we must."
Yet all in all, these two plays combine to form an impressive piece of theatre, thanks to Rubin and his excellent collaborators: John Pennoyer for his striking set and ever-changing costumes, John A. Williams for his daringly original lighting, and Michael Vieira, for his far-reaching yet suitable musical score.
The end result -- coupled with the success of Miles Potter's Romeo and Juliet -- provides some of the most solid Shakespeare to be seen at Stratford in recent years.
Coming at the start of its 50th season, it's a genuine cause for celebration in the land of the trumpet and the swan.