Henry IV, Pt 2: Fourth Ashland play, Seventh Summer Season 2011

Let's begin with a few words about the History plays.  Some are better than others, and in general, Wendy hates them all.  Last summer we saw Henry IV, Part 1 but she and her companion Chey slept through the second half, all cuddled up in their snuggles looking as cute as little angels.

Henry IV, Part 2 picks up right where Part 1 left off, but it's pretty obvious from the get go that this play is really just a vehicle for more scenes with Falstaff.  One of the great joys of going to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is that when they do sequential plays, they have the same actors play the same roles year after year.  So this year's Falstaff was last year's Falstaff, Prince Hal is the same and so on.  This continuity is wonderful, as the actors have literally years to hone their characterizations.

Mmmmm, padded!

Wendy and Amanda both rate the venue a 10 but this time because, taking advantage of the shockingly empty house, they moved to the side box seats at the intermission.  These seats have the advantage of being some of the best of the 1200 offered with unobstructed sight lines, room to stretch out, overhead views of the stage and best of all, padded seats!

Wendy would rate the production a 7 because she had been led to believe that there would be more fight scenes, and was greatly disappointed.  Much of the fault for this lies in Amanda's inadequate knowledge of this play, having only seen it once or twice before.  There are actually no fight scenes at all.  The use of costumes was nice, they really set the tone for the different scenes.  She really liked Falstaff's pageboy, a lad of about nine years.  She felt he was a really good actor.  It wasn't as boring as she expected it to be; all the parts with Prince Henry were interesting and she looked forward to them.


Amanda would rate the production an 8.  The play itself simply isn't as good as Part 1, but mostly a formula rehash of what happened in the first play without the fight scenes.  The scenes with Prince Henry and his father The King were touching and sincere as Hal tries to grow up but is reluctant to do so, knowing that to be king means his father must die.  Falstaff, played by Michael Winters was wonderful, played for great comic relief in the joy of being fat and thinking himself above the law thanks to his friendship with Hal.  The scene where Henry, now King Henry V, resplendent in his white and gold coronation suit, has to turn his old friend and partner in crime and tell him to go away and leave him alone is tragic and sad.  Poor Falstaff.  He was fooling himself all along but still.

Not Amanda's foot.