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.
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