Henry IV, Part 1
Fatal ambition, the intersection of political threat and religious fervor, a father’s anxieties of succession, a son’s responsibility, uneasy peace, civil war, denied ransoms, a sad, inscrutable bride, ringing swordfights, good old-fashioned kilted fury, brawling pranks, utter cowardice, base profiteering, gallons of sack and at least four different historical Henrys for us to keep straight: Lantern director Charles McMahon has just about enough to work with in this spring’s production of Henry IV Part I, running through May 9th.
The new King Henry may have defeated Richard and seized a throne his son will inherit, but just like any politician ("so shaken as we are, so wan with care"), taking the reins of his hard-won power comes with a writhing court of warring factions and the misgivings of the people he means to rule. Everyone might rally behind an ever-popular holy war, but this violent political expedient must wait while the Scots and Welsh glower on Henry’s new reign, making battle loom closer to home.
Henry might feel better about things, but his heir, young Hal, eschews the court for the soused and flatulent common ranks of the tavern, not least of which include the impressive girth of the slovenly highwayman Falstaff. The Earl Henry Percy of Northumberland has a son King Henry covets, the explosive young Henry Percy (fittingly known as Hotspur). But when the King demands the human spoils of Hotspur’s latest battle, and denies the ransom of Hotspur’s captured brother-in-law Mortimer from the dreaded Welshman Glendower, full rebellion rears and the Northumberlands race to the north.
For good measure, Mortimer marries Glendower’s daughter (though he can’t understand a word she says, he seems enchanted with her anyway). If Hotspur was incensed at King Henry’s cruel caprice in refusing to bring Mortimer home, he finds out the king’s dilemma soon enough: old King Richard declared Mortimer the true heir to the throne.
Echoes of today’s news cycles
The fact that winning power and favor is a far cry from keeping them makes Henry IV a story which echoes in today’s relentless political news cycle. King Henry (Pete Pryor) takes the stage at the Lantern bent double, clutching his head in his hands, unable to enjoy his victory. In the fiery scene between Northumberland (Tim Moyer), Hotspur (Andrew Kane) and the King, Pryor makes the source of the king’s rage crystal clear: not merely the anger of a provoked leader or the shock of insubordination, but a deep-seated, reactive terror of the threat to his tenuous grip on power.
Andrew Kane makes a totally volatile Hotspur. The excellent Rachael Joffred joins him for a hot-blooded scene that, under McMahon’s potent physical direction, packs a constant emotional whiplash. They buffet and embrace each other’s bodies just as much as they spar with lightning-fast shifts of sensual and emotional device. Jered McLenigan appears as Poins, a raucous tavern schemer, as well as the gloriously pissed-off "hot termagant Scot", Archibald of Douglas. His stentorian caricature strikes just the right note for Shakespeare’s irate Scot, chewing and spewing his battlefield roars with rolling guttural blasts to rival the artillery of Nick Rye’s stirring Sound Design. Mary Lee Bednarek holds her own as Mistress Quickly with Tavern scoundrels Poins, Peto (David Blatt) and Bardolph (Tim Moyer again), and seamlessly becomes the new Lady Mortimer, offering a plaintive interlude of Welsh song.
Allen Radway digs with equal dedication and verve into Hal’s debauchery and his royal promise. And Pete Pryor, double cast as the king and as Falstaff, gives what might be the most enjoyable performance of the season in Costume Designer Mark Mariani’s expertly padded suit: shifty, shameless schemes, regular digestive eruptions and pitch-perfect hilarious bombast all piled on top of an irresistible camaraderie that would make you choose the tavern over the court, too. His eyes rove the audience shrewdly as if some new bawdiness is waiting to be plucked there. His whinnying, beached-whale "escape" is in perfect contrast to J. Alex Cordaro’s ferociously clanging swordfights.
Director Charles McMahon doesn’t smooth the wildly disparate serious, romantic and comic elements of the play’s varied worlds into a more homogenous whole. Instead, he gives heady, visceral showcase to the speed-of-light shifts in feeling and intent that occur not just scene-to-scene but within single scenes or speeches. At the Lantern, the unconventional dramatic swings of this "history play" become what they’re meant to be: a comical and thrilling study in the machinations of human hope, greed, fear and ambition. And it’s a tribute to the cast that when they finally appear all together for the curtain call, you’re surprised that there were only nine of them in this kaleidoscopic performance.
The Lantern Theatre Company’s Henry IV Part I has been extended through May 9th at the St. Stephen’s Theatre, 10th and Ludlow Streets, Philadelphia. For more information visit The Lantern website.
