Playhouse beats the heat

Tom Titus

It takes a special breed of actor to strap on 15th Century

costumes and perform for three hours outdoors when it’s 100 degrees

in the shade -- and there is no shade.

Fortunately, the Huntington Beach Playhouse has found a number of

such special actors for its annual Shakespeare in the Park production

of “Henry IV, Part 1.” These performers risk not only injury in the

battle scenes, but heat stroke as well.

Director Wendi de Barros, who has become an expert in

Shakespearean staging after a plethora of acting and directing

assignments with works of the Bard of Avon, moves the

often-cumbersome play through its paces with alacrity. Inventive bits

of comic business keep the long-winded portions palatable, leading to

a breath-catching skirmish on the battlefield between two

determinedly opposing forces.

The climactic action sequences not only are skillfully enacted,

they’ve been meticulously choreographed by Matthew Gilbert and Paul

Burt -- as if they didn’t already have enough to do by taking the two

biggest roles in the show, Prince Hal and Sir John Falstaff,

respectively.

Gilbert, as the king’s wastrel son who discovers his sense of

history and commitment, exhibits both a splendid sense of playfulness

in the early scenes and a seething aura of loyalty in the latter

moments.

His tormenting yet steadfastly loyal relationship with Falstaff is

especially well depicted.

Burt -- who also played a rollicking, put-upon Falstaff in last

summer’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” -- returns to portray the

bawdy, boozing, corpulent knight with a vengeance in “Henry IV.”

Here it’s his courage rather than his libido that’s at issue, and

Burt renders a powerfully comic character. It’s a masterful

performance from an actor who seems to be born for the assignment.

The steely, rebellious Hotspur, Sir Harry Percy, who spearheads

the insurrectionists, is powerfully conveyed by Bri D’nofrio, whose

seething resentment of the crown boils over in his ominous

interpretation. Tony Grande depicts King Henry with an overriding

authority that crackles in his early scene with D’nofrio over the

treatment of prisoners.

Theresa Brown is excellent as Lady Percy, Hotspur’s protesting

wife, while Valerie Casillas is a saucy tavern keeper and Robert

Purcell strongly doubles as noblemen Glendower and Westmoreland.

Gabriel Haastrup also takes on two sharply contrasting characters, a

fast friend of Prince Hal in the first act and a murderous foe in

the second -- a device that doesn’t work as effectively as

intended, since both are major characters at opposite poles in the

plot.

Less impressive are the minor supporting performances given by

David Brenneman, Dan Gonzalez, Matthew McCarty and Paul W. Venderly

-- each of whom assumes more than one characterization. Lauren Jacobs

has a nice sequence as the wife of McCarty, who only speaks Welsh and

therefore must communicate with her husband through an interpreter.

All concerned deserve applause for taking on such a challenging

assignment under the scorching sun. If all’s right with the world,

we’ll see “Henry IV, Part 2” next July, with Paul Burt in his third

straight Falstaffian appearance.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Independent.