ALL IS TRUE, OR HENRY VIII


Shakespeare aficionados will welcome the arrival of All Is True, or Henry VIII, aka the play even they probably didn’t know he (co)wrote, as well as the arrival of its gifted director as the new artistic head of the North Hollywood Shakespeareans who call themselves The Porters Of Hellsgate.

Though Henry VIII The Play is likely to be new to all but the most diehard Shakespeare-philes, Henry VIII The King most certainly isn’t, meaning that The Bard and co-author John Fletcher’s take on characters featured in TV’s Wolf Hall and The Tudors will be of interest even to those like this reviewer for whom Shakespeare remains a not-yet-fully-acquired taste.

All Is True, or Henry VIII focuses primarily on two relationships, Henry’s (Jesse James Thomas) with Cardinal Wolsey (Thomas Bigley), the Lord Chancellor of England, and His Majesty’s with Katherine of Aragon (Dawn Alden), the first of his six ill-fated wives.

Caught between Henry and Wolsey is the Duke of Buckingham (Sean Faye), soon to find himself jailed (and worse) for daring to complain about the Cardinal’s power.

Katherine, meanwhile, is about to find herself kicked to the curb when her husband meets someone more likely to give him an heir, i.e., the enticing Anne Boleyn (Anusha Shankar), and though Shakespeare and Fletcher choose to end their play with the birth of Elizabeth II, we all know how things turned out for Queen Anne. (Badly, in case somehow you didn’t know.)

Also figuring in the action are so many supporting characters, you’d need a score card to keep track of them and the play’s many plotlines (and I made sure to have a printed synopsis on hand to do just that).

Suffice it to say that there are intrigues aplenty, enough to fill up a whopping three-hour running time (about an hour too long for me, though I doubt any true Shakespeare lover will complain).

Director Block’s inspired touches include a series of contemporary-style Breaking News reports shot by cinematographer David Cherry and featuring anchorpersons Jono Eiland and Charlotte Munson delivering Shakespeare-&-Fletcher’s expository text as if they were live on CNN.

Block’s staging makes full use of the Whitmore-Lindley Theatre stage and its three staircases, and though his scenic design is simple in the extreme (a white cloth backdrop, several white gauze curtains, and a throne), it has an elegance that a more detailed but equally budget-conscious set might lack, particularly when lit to vibrant effect by lighting designer Bigley.

As for the “What’s To Come” video montage that precedes Henry VIII’s final scene, it provides a devastating reminder that the play’s optimistic ending ignores what lies ahead for the still relatively svelte Henry and the still very much alive Anne.

I also liked the way Block staged a masked palace feast as if it were a Sunset Strip shindig, and a wordless, gorgeously choreographed sequence in which Katherine seeks solace from her ladies in waiting.

Thomas’s star turn as Henry could not be more colorful or risk-taking, Bigley’s Wolsey is a heavyweight force to be reckoned with, and Faye excels at distinguishing three very different characters.

Not only do all three of the above actors, and virtually the entire company (completed by Michael Bigley, Tom Block, Ian Runge, and Adrian Zamora) do topnotch work, they make Elizabethan English sound as close to modern dialog as Elizabethan English possibly can.

Julie Lanctot and Renée Torchio MacDonald are terrific as Norfolk and Abervagenny (roles traditionally played by male actors), and so is Pirozzoli, though gender-bending the Archbishop of Canterbury didn’t work for me. (Even the other characters seemed to have a hard time remembering if the Archbishop was a Lady or a Lord.)

Two more performances stand out in particular, Brendan Mulligan’s dynamic turn as Gardiner and Alden’s commanding, deeply-felt work as Katherine.

Contemporary garb suits Block’s vision to a T, and sound designer Nick Neidorf’s movie soundtrack-ready original music adds to the production’s dramatic impact.

Alden is fight and intimacy choreographer.

William Shakespeare may not ever be precisely my cup of tea, but if you love The Bard Of Avon as much as The Porters Of Hellsgate so obviously do (and have done for the past sixteen years), you won’t want to miss All Is True, or Henry VIII.

Whitmore-Lindley Theatre Center, 11006 Magnolia Blvd, North Hollywood.
www.portersofhellsgate.com

–Steven Stanley
November 4, 2022
Photos: Lucia Towers

 

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