The Kingdom and the Power

In the court of Henry IV, politics and personality meet with the clash of sword on shield. The cry of the battlefield resounds in the hall as the player with the power of position behind him emerges as victor. All the justness of the rebel family Percy's cause fails to overcome the king's opposing will; all the willfullness of the prodigal prince falls before the demands of his role as future king. At its most immediate level, the theme of the play Henry IV (part 1) is purely political: its art is a lesson in the practice of politics.

Practical politics. But is that all? At the Boar's Head tavern, Prince Hal carouses with his companions in open parody of the society at court; at court, "Hotspur" Percy (the other Hal) releases his rage with the complete lack of self-control typical of the society at the Boar. The two worlds, in other words, are peopled with men and women of the same mettle, though any good production of Henry will, as if constructing a strong suit of armor, in joining the various elements hold them in tension.

The problem in George Hamlin's current production is that the comic scenes, marked by both bravura acting and a careful attention to detail, come to represent "all the world," while the court scenes, marked by all too pregnant pregnant pauses and constant upstaging, represent nothing so much as the players' own simple-minded political maneuvers. Through this serious chink in the production's armor, one can glimpse the basic weakness of the play; in this dramatic as in the political world position triumphs over character.

Every element in the Loeb production conspires to undercut the play's serious intention. As if taking the cue from Donald Soule's unbalanced set design, which places the richly-colored tavern hearth flush against the dry burlap of symmetrical castle towers, the comic scenes, appearing in the midst of the serious, only seem to mock them. The peak of this production is reached when Falstaff, balancing his weight on a chair balanced on a table top, wearing a pillow on his head as crown, chastises Hal in mimicry of his father, the king. Even at the climax of the play's final battle scene-in which Hotspur and Hal engage-it is Falstaff the comic spirit who steals the victory, a bit too successfully, quite literally from the jaws of death. As the two Hals meet, Falstaff staggers in to warn his friend that he will "find no boy's play here." But right on Falstaff's heels in Hotspur's ally, the Earl of Douglas. Seeing him, Falstaff drops to the ground and plays dead. Despite the ensuing fairly well-staged duel and despite the later blocking of Hal exactly between the now dead Hotspur and the fake--dead Falstaff, the scene remains unbalanced. Its impact comes and goes with the initial comic burst.

In Shakespeare's work, the fallen knight Falstaff, a wonderful scoundrel of a man, tends to dominate the play, by the force of his wit if not by his sheer weight. Brilliantly played by Paul Redmond, Falstaff far outshines all the other roles in the show. In Redmond's hands, Falstaff is an incorrigible bundle of contradictions. Lusting after the role of moralizer, he pulls his bulging body up underneath him, only to find that a stamping foot or a waving hand takes on a life of its own. Redmond shows Falstaff as a weak old man lying about brave exploits, a man who fools himself while fooling no one else. Yet Redmond's Falstaff can also execute a devastating denial of courtesy in a sarcastic bow or, blessing the servants with holy water poured from a bottle of sack, a mean mockery of the church. As this Falstaff sighs and raises his eyes wearily to his eyebrows, he almost rises above himself when suddenly he turns and spits and hollers in full voice: "There's lime in this sack."

By contrast, the other actors generally remain trapped within the superficial seriousness of their roles. From the first moment he rushes onstage to confront the king, John Bellucci's Hotspur is the embodiment of the choleric passions that gave that character his name. Racing from lord to lord in a plea to keep his prisoners, Belluci's Hotspur is impulsive, impatient and proud. And where his frenetic gestures grow tiring, his beautiful voice, sneering at some words, spitting out others, compensates. Still, the limitations of Bellucci's portrayal are apparent in the scenes he plays with his wife. While Susan Kander as Lady Percy plays skillfully with her husband's emotions, holding him as she yields to him and yielding just when she holds him the most, Belucci, ever the young soldier chafing at the bit, is not sensitive enough here.

Similarly, Kerry Konrad spoils what is almost a very effective portrayal of the king by striving for but never quite realizing the power of his role. Konrad is good in the opening scenes, wearied and saddened into bitterness over the trouble in his family and in the land, and again, in his meeting with Hal, when he shows disappointment and displeasure. But Konrad does not add enough depth to this character whose experiences frame the play. And of his courtiers, only John Goerner, as the wicked Earl of Worcester, as conniving as he appears to be composed, adds an interesting touch of treachery to his part.

But it is neither the failure to flesh out roles nor the numerous technical difficulties that reveal the weakness at the heart of his production. Instead, just as the progress of the prince from tavern to court expresses the theme of the play, so Jonathan Emerson's performance as Hal points up the lesson at the Loeb. Emerson handles his comic scenes skillfully, lolling drunkenly onstage, stingingly imitating Hotspur and his lady Percy, and showing, as when he helps the helpless Falstaff into his boots, a tender and subtle shift of mood. But when confronted with a serious scene, Emerson abandons his character to the exigencies of position. So, when reprimanded by the king, Emerson's Hal does not convincingly defend himself. And after having killed Hotspur, this Hal cowers in horror rather than standing exhausted but moved. Ultimately, declaring in his final speech that the imprisoned Earl of Douglas should go "ransomless and free," Emerson does not seem to rise high enough above the warring elements of the play to render Hal's a truly reconciling offer.

In the end, the banners behind the prince do not look quite splendid enough; the trumpets ring a little hollow. As the lights go down on this Henry IV one remembers not the holders of exalted positions but the ignoble Falstaff who has already exited offstage, dragging the body of Hotspur as if he had killed the young leader himself. The final lesson of this production is that it is people who endure. The positions they hold, no matter how impressively presented, are, as Falstaff might say, mere "scutcheons.'