ACT 5 SCENE 3
An enthusiastic crowd has gathered outside the gate of the royal court for the christening. The people are noisy and restless and the Porter and then the Lord Chamberlain try to calm them and make way for the procession.
ACT 5 SCENE 4
A magnificent procession enters for the christening. The Garter King-at-Arms asks heaven to "send prosperous life, long, and ever happy, to the high and mighty Princess of England." Cranmer wishes the king and queen the same and goes on to prophesy that the princess will become "A pattern to all princes." She will be virtuous and learned: "She shall be loved and feared" and bring the nation peace, which will be continued by her successor. He foretells her long life and eventual death, "yet a virgin." Henry is delighted and announces the day shall be a "holiday."
EPILOGUE
The Epilogue fears the play won't have pleased everyone. Those who come to rest and sleep will have been woken by the trumpets, while others who come to hear the city abused will also have been disappointed. So the play must be left to the judgment of good women, since they've shown them one (although her identity is ambiguous). If they smile and judge the play a success, then the men will too, since it's bad luck not to do so when their ladies "bid 'em clap."
HENRY VIII
IN PERFORMANCE:
THE RSC AND BEYOND
FOUR CENTURIES OF HENRY VIII: AN OVERVIEW
Shakespeare and Fletcher's late play about the reign of Henry VIII enjoyed great popularity historically and hence has a complete and continuous stage history. Originally designed perhaps to celebrate the marriage of James I's daughter, another Princess Elizabeth, to Frederick V, the Elector Palatine, in the summer of 1613, it has been regularly revived for spectacular royal occasions ever since. Evidence of its early performance and reception exists in several accounts recording the disastrous performance on 29 June 1613, when one of the cannons set the Globe's thatch alight. Sir Henry Wotton's letter of 2 July 1613 offers a detailed account of its staging, as well as voicing his concerns about its manner of representing "greatness" on stage, making it "very familiar, if not ridiculous":
I will entertain you at the present with what happened this week at the Banks side. The King's players had a new play called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty even to the matting of the stage; the knights of the order with their Georges and Garter, the guards with their embroidered coats, and the like: sufficient in truth within awhile to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now King Henry making a Masque at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper or other stuff, wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where being thought at first but idle smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabrick, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broyled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit, put it out with a bottle of ale.64
Despite this setback, the play remained popular, due to its combination of the treatment of relatively recent history and gorgeous spectacle. It was revived at the rebuilt Globe at the request of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, on 29 July 1628.
After the Restoration and reopening of the theaters in 1660, Henry VIII was one of the few Shakespearean plays to be regularly staged. Bookseller and actor Thomas Davies records how Thomas Betterton was coached in the part of Henry by William Davenant, a godson of Shakespeare's, who had been instructed by John Lowin, a member of the King's Men. John Downes, Davenant's company bookkeeper records that Betterton was "all new Cloath'd in proper Habits" for the role.65 According to William Winter, "Betterton's performance was accounted essentially royal, and the example of stalwart predominance, regal dignity, and bluff humour thus set has ever since been followed."66 He was succeeded in the part by Barton Booth, Charles Macklin, and James Quin, suggesting that Henry was regarded as the star part, although Colley Cibber's Wolsey was noted and praised.
Cibber mounted productions at Drury Lane between 1721 and 1733. His 1727 revival included a notable coronation procession at the beginning of Act 4, designed to coincide with the coronation of George II. David Garrick's 1762 staging for the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane was similarly spectacular, boasting a cast of more than a hundred and thirty for the coronation scene. Emphasis on the pageantry of the play necessitated cuts to the text, a practice that continued as elaborate spectacle came to dominate productions. At the same time, criticism of the play's language and structure were voiced.67 In a discussion of John Philip Kemble's 1811 production, the Times' critic suggests that Shakespeare had been called on to create a piece of hackwork, designed to "palliate ... adultery," and "obscure" Katherine's memory and Henry's "gross caprices":
Processions and banquets find their natural place in a work of this kind; and without the occasional display of well-spread tables, well-lighted chandeliers, and well-rouged maids of honour, the audience could not possibly sustain the accumulated ennui of Henry the Eighth.68
The reviewer adds that "The banquet deserved all the praise that can be given to costly elegance. It was the most dazzling stage exhibition that we have ever seen," and goes on to praise the performances of Kemble and his sister, Sarah Siddons: "If Mrs. Siddons and Mr. Kemble desired to show the versatility of their powers, they could not have chosen more suitable parts than Katherine and Wolsey."69 It became one of Siddons' best-known and loved roles:
The grandeur of the actress as Queen Katherine, her air of suffering and persecution, enlisted a new order of sympathy, and the well-known denunciation of the Cardinal, like her famous scene in Macbeth, became inseparably associated with herself.70
Katherine and Wolsey were now seen as the leading roles and the first three acts alone were performed. Edmund Kean's Wolsey was highly praised in his 1822 and 1830 revivals. William Charles Macready played Wolsey from 1823 to 1847 in productions notable for the great actresses who played Katherine, including Helen Faucit, Charlotte Cushman, and Fanny Kemble. For the royal "command" performance of Acts 1-3 at Drury Lane on 10 July 1847, Macready played Wolsey to Charlotte Cushman's Katherine and Samuel Phelps's Henry, in the presence of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Phelps himself played Wolsey in his stagings at Sadler's Wells in 1845 and 1848, after which date he included Act 4: the staging on 16 January 1850 was given to help raise funds for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He revived the play another four times between 1854 and 1862. By far the most successful Victorian production, however, was Charles Kean's 1855 spectacular with himself as Wolsey and his wife, Ellen Tree, as Katherine. The twenty-three-year-old Lewis Carroll recorded in his diary that it was "the greatest theatrical treat I ever had or ever expect to have--I had no idea that anything so superb as the scenery and dresses was ever to be seen on the stage."71 Kean retained most of the first three acts, "but to allow time for the many processions and tableaux, which included an actual coronation, Acts 4 and 5 contained little else."72 It was Katherine's vision of Act 4 Scene 2 that seems to have produced the most striking effect:
But oh, that exquisite vision of Queen Catherine! I almost held my breath to watch; the illusion is perfect, and I felt as if in a dream all the time it lasted. It was like a delicious reverie, or the most beautiful poetry. This is the true end and object of acting--to raise the mind above itself, and out of its petty everyday cares--never shall I forget that wonderful evening, that exquisite vision--sunbeams broke in through the roof and gradually revealed two angelic forms, floating in front of the carved work of the ceiling: the column of sunbeams shone down upon the sleeping queen, and gradually down it floated a troop of angelic forms, transparent, and carrying palm branches in their hands: they waved these over the sleep
ing queen, with oh! such a sad and solemn grace.-- So could I fancy (if the thought be not profane) would real angels seem to our mortal vision ...73
The top angel in the vision was Ellen Terry.74 Kean's last performance on the London stage was as Wolsey on 29 August 1859. Phelps too made his final appearance in the part in the revival at the Royal Aquarium in 1878 when he "all but collapsed at the end of his final speeches" and had to be "helped off stage when the curtain fell."75
In his stage history, George C. D. Odell suggests that Henry Irving's production at the Lyceum in 1892 was "Undoubtedly the greatest--if not the only--Shakespearian 'spectacle' that Irving ever attempted."76 The richness and accuracy of costumes and sets were much admired, as were the performances of the strong cast. Irving's was an "original conception" of Cardinal Wolsey that "differed radically from that of most of his famous predecessors, and constantly challenged attack and admiration. Certainly it was not the Wolsey of tradition, but forceful intellect was in every fiber of it."77 Ellen Terry's Katherine was similarly admired: "It had not the somber touch of tragedy that should ennoble it, but it was womanly to the core and thoroughly royal in deportment."78
Despite his innovative interpretation, Irving continued the tradition of giving most of the first three acts, but only those parts of the final two that added to the spectacle. Herbert Beerbohm Tree at His Majesty's Theatre was similarly cavalier in his handling of the text, justifying his decision in an essay of 1920: "Henry VIII is largely a pageant play. As such it was conceived and written; as such did we endeavour to present it to the public." For this reason, "It was thought desirable to omit almost in their entirety those portions of the play which deal with the Reformation, being as they are practically devoid of dramatic interest and calculated, as they are, to weary an audience."79 Tree argues this practice was vindicated by the Prologue's reference to "two short hours." Nevertheless reviews make it clear that the drastic cutting of the text did not have the desired effect of speeding the production up:
Much cut, for Tree removed the whole of the last act and ended at Anne Boleyn's coronation, the play nevertheless occupied four hours: the stage staff of His Majesty's, trained though it was, had to toil frantically to construct Wolsey's ostentatious palace, the hall in Blackfriars where Katherine was tried, and Westminster Abbey itself.80
Despite this, Tree's production enjoyed tremendous success, running for a record-breaking 254 performances until 8 April 1911 and earning him this plaudit from Sporting Life: "He has achieved that which a few years ago was considered impossible--he has made Shakespeare popular."81 A twenty-five-minute silent film of this production was made, but all copies were sadly destroyed after six weeks of special cinematic exhibition.
Early-twentieth-century productions continued the tradition of spectacular stagings. Ben Greet's for the tercentenary celebrations of Shakespeare's death at the Stratford Memorial Theatre and the Old Vic was revived two years later in London with Russell Thorndike as Wolsey and Sybil Thorndike as Katherine. Tree had cut the last act completely, moving straight from Katherine's death to Anne's coronation. Such practices were rendered less justified by changing critical perceptions; the work of the eminent scholar E. K. Chambers exposed the subjective nature of the verse tests applied by the "disintegrators" (scholars who held that many of Shakespeare's plays were not written by him but revisions of, or collaborations with, other writers), which argued that Shakespeare was responsible for most of Henry VIII. Robert Atkins's 1924 production at the Old Vic, despite staging the complete text, took less time than Tree's four-hour marathon. Atkins was influenced by the ideas of William Poel and the Elizabethan Stage Society who attempted to recreate Elizabethan staging practices. Use of the complete text rekindled interest in the role of Henry, evidenced in Tyrone Guthrie's casting of Charles Laughton in the part in his 1933 production at Sadler's Wells, with Flora Robson as Katherine.
7. 1910, Herbert Beerbohm Tree production. "[T]he stage staff ... had to toil frantically to construct Wolsey's ostentatious palace, the hall in Blackfriars where Katherine was tried, and Westminster Abbey itself."
The play has never enjoyed great popularity in America; it was first performed in 1799 at New York's Old Park Theater. There was a production at the same theater in 1811 with George Frederick Cooke as Henry, and another in 1834 with Charles Kemble as Wolsey and his daughter Fanny, then twenty-three, as Katherine. Four years later a production was staged at the National Theater, Church Street, New York, and another in 1847 at the old Bowery Theater with Eliza Marian Trewar as Queen Katherine. Many of the best-known British productions including Kean's, Macready's, and Irving's were also seen briefly in America. The notable American actress Charlotte Cushman, whose "Queen Katherine was the consummate image of sovereignty and noble womanhood, austere and yet sweetly patient,"82 also played the part of Wolsey in 1857. Edwin Booth played Wolsey in 1876 in a four-act version at the Arch Street Theater, Philadelphia, and revived it for Booth's Theater, New York, in 1878.
Despite its relative lack of success in America, in 1946 Margaret Webster inaugurated the American Repertory Theater's first season at the International Theater with Henry VIII, in her attempt to create "an American Old Vic."83 Webster's direction received praise as did David Ffolkes' designs, but the production overall was not a success: "The fact that a play not seen in New York in this century was used as an opening guy seemed most hopeful. Indeed the production itself was a fine one."84 Webster reduced the play's five acts and sixteen scenes to two acts and thirteen scenes.85 The result was "a vivid and smooth-running production full of colour and pageantry,"86 but although it played in repertory throughout the winter, at the end of the season the American Repertory Theater was forced to close. Theater historian and critic Linda McJ. Micheli argues that "Webster's Henry VIII stands somewhere between nineteenth-century 'scenic Shakespeare' and the 'Elizabethan Shakespeare' championed by William Poel and others in regional and academic theaters since the early 1900s."87
Micheli suggests the production is
illuminated by comparison with Tree's 1910 production, a spectacular culmination of the scenic tradition, and Tyrone Guthrie's Stratford production of 1949, which introduced mainstream audiences to many of the "new ideas" we now take for granted--a thrust stage, an emphasis on continuity and brisk pace, a respect for the full text, a de-emphasizing of spectacle and solemnity.88
Webster's production, she concludes, was "[o]n balance ... closer to Tree's than to Guthrie's."89
Guthrie's 1949 Stratford revival is generally regarded as the most significant of the twentieth century, which managed to unify the play by inspired design and directorial decisions. Tanya Moiseiwitsch's set contrived an "excellent compromise between a platform and a picture frame stage ... with its varied levels, its ample forestage, fifteen feet deep, and its well-thought-out modifications and rearrangements of the gallery and the inner-stage."90 Reviewers all comment on the "fluidity of movement and the power and the pace thus given to the action":91
the fluid staging which juxtaposed a scene of downfall with one of spectacular rise. The music of the masque ... is still in our ears when the muffled drums usher in ... the somber procession of Buckingham on his way to execution. Later, as the fallen Wolsey goes off down the center stairs leading into the orchestra pit, the excitement about Anne's coronation begins on the main stage.92
Both Prologue and Epilogue were spoken by the Old Lady (Anne Bullen's friend): a device that divided critics. Guthrie stressed the central role of Henry: "Admirably played by Anthony Quayle ... Henry dominated the scenes, huge, hot-tempered but human, a mixture of strong-willed sovereign and pouting schoolboy, a pleasure-loving king but a conscientious one, with true Tudor warmth and directness."93 For Muriel St. Clare Byrne, Diana Wynyard's Katherine "made one feel as if it were being spoken for the first time" while the "test" of Harry Andrews's conception of Wolsey was "that the nearer he came to the audience the better I liked his performance." His Wolsey she thought "just as good as the author
meant him to be."94 Even one of the few critical reviews admits that "Mr. Guthrie made Henry VIII a good show" while lamenting "but that is about all he did do; the nuances of character and the play's general conception seemed to have escaped him."95 Such a negative assessment was very much in the minority though and the play was revived with a new cast at the Old Vic in 1953 to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Guthrie was again lauded as "our most flamboyant producer" of a "dazzling production" that
made full use of the topical humours of the text. The three onlookers at the Coronation of Anne Boleyn, munching Tudor sandwiches and spotting the Earl Marshall, had a contemporary ring, and at the christening of the Princess Elizabeth which ends this play few can have failed to be moved by the sense of occasion.96
Public tastes have changed since then and the play has fallen into disfavor, with fewer and fewer revivals and longer periods between them. The most significant from the RSC are discussed below. While Shakespeare's play has become less popular than at any time in its history, the same cannot be said for its main protagonist, Henry VIII. Fascination with Henry, especially his six wives, and with Tudor history in general, has produced new plays as well as numerous films and television programs about the period and its colorful cast.
The 1979 televised version for the BBC TV Shakespeare Collection, directed by Kevin Billington, is widely regarded as one of the most successful in this series. It opted for a "documentary approach"97 with "a sustained insistence on authenticity of visual impressions and on vocal naturalism."98 Much of it was shot in "authentic" historical locations, using close-ups and techniques that highlighted the play's intimacy in contrast to the grand pageantry of stage productions: "while traditional staging has exaggerated scenic effects to the disadvantage of the ultimate private and personal issues towards which the play progresses, television can correct the imbalance by its concentration on the individual's inward condition."99 The strong cast with John Stride as Henry, Timothy West as Wolsey, and Claire Bloom "memorably cast as Queen Katherine"100 won unanimous praise.