Henry IV, Part I at OSF

Last night we started our visit to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with Henry IV, Part I at the Elizabethan Stage. Built like the Globe, it is fully enclosed with no roof over most of the audience. It was a very warm day, but with nice breezes making it tolerable from the start and by the time the play ended almost three hours later it was down to a comfortable room temperature.

The cast was generally quite good, as one might expect. They had the strong understanding of the language that is key to an excellent production. Perhaps the weakest note was the king, who had trouble projecting well enough for us to hear him midway back. Hal was marvelous, with an element of strength underneath his antic disposition that is sometimes absent. Their Falstaff was the best I've ever seen, comic yet sincere and real and wonderfully specific in his mannerisms and grotesqueries.

I also enjoyed Poins, whom they presented as a deaf person to whom his friends signed. At times his interlocutors echoed his lines for the non-signing among us, to be sure we didn't miss any information, but often they just responded to what he'd said, trusting us to pick it up from context.

Their Hotspur had a very different approach to the role than I had seen before. A black man with a resonant voice and the grace of a trained dancer, he played Percy as a laughing, antic fellow, with a restless temper and energy. It was an interesting take, but didn't really work for me, especially since Mortimer, Glendower and the Douglas were all at least six inches taller than he was.

But overall, it was a very good production--I think the comic sections were stronger than I've ever seen them, making for a well-integrated, balanced evening of theatre and a great start to our Festival weekend.

Henry IV, Part I at OSF

Last night we started our visit to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with Henry IV, Part I at the Elizabethan Stage. Built like the Globe, it is fully enclosed with no roof over most of the audience. It was a very warm day, but with nice breezes making it tolerable from the start and by the time the play ended almost three hours later it was down to a comfortable room temperature.

The cast was generally quite good, as one might expect. They had the strong understanding of the language that is key to an excellent production. Perhaps the weakest note was the king, who had trouble projecting well enough for us to hear him midway back. Hal was marvelous, with an element of strength underneath his antic disposition that is sometimes absent. Their Falstaff was the best I've ever seen, comic yet sincere and real and wonderfully specific in his mannerisms and grotesqueries.

I also enjoyed Poins, whom they presented as a deaf person to whom his friends signed. At times his interlocutors echoed his lines for the non-signing among us, to be sure we didn't miss any information, but often they just responded to what he'd said, trusting us to pick it up from context.

Their Hotspur had a very different approach to the role than I had seen before. A black man with a resonant voice and the grace of a trained dancer, he played Percy as a laughing, antic fellow, with a restless temper and energy. It was an interesting take, but didn't really work for me, especially since Mortimer, Glendower and the Douglas were all at least six inches taller than he was.

But overall, it was a very good production--I think the comic sections were stronger than I've ever seen them, making for a well-integrated, balanced evening of theatre and a great start to our Festival weekend.