Henry 4 (Part One)
Though Eric Frederickson’s performance as the knight errant is sometimes charming, much of the ferocity of this uneven production, directed by Katie Carey Govier and fight choreographer Angela Bonacasa, feels forced. It’s obvious that many women, from Indira Gandhi to Margaret Thatcher to Condi Rice, know how to play politics and fight hard and dirty (often with someone else’s life in the balance). Govier knows this, saying in her director’s note that “women, like men, are vicious, brutal, compassionate, good-willed, jealous, over-zealous, passionate, violent, insecure. . . .” But Stockyards has abandoned the opportunity to present a woman who’s feckless, filthy, self-indulgent, effortlessly witty–and perfectly right in her worldview.
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Frederickson’s Falstaff makes up in hair what he lacks in girth, though the beads and braids in his beard suggest a laid-back Burning Man pilgrim more than a sack-swilling hedonist. Playing with swords is good, clean, sweaty fun, and the women in the cast do well at it. But Falstaff triumphs with words–some of the funniest and bleakest that Shakespeare wrote. By contrast the king’s and nobles’ harangues seem interchangeable and the characters themselves puny. Imagining a world with female Falstaffs–women whose voices count even though they’re not grieving mothers, pure-hearted victims, or spotless do-gooders–now that would be radical.
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