2/02/23: Henry IV (workshop)
What: TFANA is hosting experimental workshops of both Henry IV and Richard II, directed by Bedlam's Eric Tucker.
And? Usually my biggest issue with Eric Tucker's direction is he overdoes all his choices, with no one to keep him in check, now that Andrus Nichols is no longer his collaborator. Here, my issue is he barely commits to any of his choices. This production is advertised as an experimental workshop, a sort of open rehearsal. To be clear, I have no problem with the minimal design; that lets the text breathe, and I'm here for it. But the one moment we get of an actor stopping a scene to ask if they can run it again with new choices, feels more artificial than anything else happening that evening. Other choices, like characters announcing their exits and entrances, are inconsistently used. My other recurring issue with Eric Tucker (and what might finally be a deal breaker for me) is his devoted penchant for "teehee man in a dress." I thought here we were finally avoiding that issue until Thomas Jay Ryan appears in a tattered rehearsal skirt to play Lady Northumberland and the audience obligingly titters. It makes me so fucking tired. Tucker needs to do better.
I have one other issue I want to discuss, and then we'll get to the praise and wrap this up. Falstaff is written to be a fat man. His fatness, and everyone else's mockery of it, is about a third of the play's humor. I'm not here to yell that Shakespeare was fatphobic because that conversation is a waste of time. I won't even spend much time on the fact that most men cast as Falstaff are padded out to be fat, rather than the production casting a truly fat person. But I do want to say that this particular cast is primarily thin people, and Jay O. Sanders, though not thin, is also not fat. And to have all these skinny people continually mock him for his corpulence, when the man is demonstrably not so, is enough to give the audience watching severe body dysmorphia. Just. Again, I'm tired.
Okay, the praise. Jay O. Sanders. What a damn blessing this man is. He's so gifted at language, at modulating his voice and his body to catch every nuance. He makes a truly splendid--if decidedly not fat--Falstaff. My other big praise is seeing how much the cast are enjoying themselves, and each other. Throughout much of the show they are seated in among the audience when not onstage, and they laugh and cheer each other on. I don't know if the whole show is worth the nearly four hours we spend in the theater, but it's still worth it to see Jay O. Sanders's wonderful turn as Falstaff.
Streaming Theater Related Content I Watched
- Second Stage's livestream of Between Riverside and Crazy.
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