Summary 
Ambitious attempt at producing both Henry IV plays in repertory, the first with some scenes from Richard II and this second production concluding with moments from Henry V. The cast plays more than forty roles with mixed results, an applaudable effort of varying effectiveness, the most memorable scenes being the culminating confrontation of the guilt-ridden King on his death bed with his ne'er-do-well but crafty soon-to-be-crowned eldest son.
Design
Directed by Patrick Swanson. Adapted by Robert Walsh.
Cast
Erin Elizabeth Adams (Doll Tearsheet/Coleville/Davy), Bill Barclay (Prince Hal), Steve Barkhimer (Shallow/Bardolph), Allyn Burrows (Hotspur/Pistol/Warwick), Joel Colodner (Henry IV), Jonathan Louis Dent (Chief Justice/Nym/Mouldy), John Greene (Morton/Fang/ Porter/Westmoreland/Beadle), Obehi Janice (Page/Peto/Shadow/Bishop), Marya Lowry (Lady Northumberland/Archbishop of Canterbury/Shadow), Dev Luthra (Northumberland), Sarah Newhouse (Archbishop of York/Lady Percy/Harcourt/Gower), Risher Reddick (Snare/ Lancaster/Feeble/Lord Bardolph), Bobbie Steinbach (Mistress Quickly/Rumour/Singer), Michael Forden Walker (Travers/Poins/Silence/Clarence/Mowbray), Robert Walsh (Falstaff).
Analysis
Actors' Shakespeare Project opens Henry IV, Part 2 in repertory with Part 1, the sprawling combined effort adapted by Robert Walsh and subtitled The Coveted Crown.
Criss-crossing wooden decks divide a small audience into four squares within a warehouse space near the Boston waterfront. Wooden posts with various coats-of-arms line the stage, weathered planks and curtained mini-stages elevated on each side. The full house lights remain up as actors in denim and leather and combat boots take seats and crouching poses onstage. Suspended bare bulbs provide sparse red lighting like a construction site, and light emanates from beneath the walkway planks. The cast hums and pounds rhythm on the stage during a brief reprise of Hal defeating Hotspur from Part 1 in a darkly-lit knife fight, then a female Rumour enters to sing her opening lines.
The rebel Northumberland begins the play proper 1.1 from within a wheelchair - "never so few and never so needed" - amid messengers with inaccurate good news, then bad news. The messengers wear hoodies, caps, and gloves, rebel servants in a modernized uprising during squalid economic times. Director Patrick Swanson moves the production quickly, navigating the myriad story threads with a cast of fifteen doubling often to play more than forty roles in widely varying degrees of effectiveness. With 1.2 the pace slows in a character study of adapter Walsh's puffed up Falstaff, a carefully coiffed but dissipated old knight in a long black leather coat over a paisley shirt, an unlit cigar in his mouth. Bardolph plays wailing saxophone notes as bistro tables are set up with white table cloths, serviced by a stoic female waiter in a red tuxedo jacket. Walsh's salt-and-pepper bearded Falstaff, heavily padded in belly and rear end, pauses mid-speech to peruse the label on a bottle of wine as his omnipresent silver-sneakers-wearing Page fluffs his heaping bowl of pasta. Walsh plays Falstaff as an overstuffed high-society wannabe, blustering with self-importance amid an array of James Coburn-like squints, mannerisms, and voice inflections. He attempts to hide from the Chief Justice, seated at a table at the opposite side of the raised stage, by carrying a potted plant offstage before returning to steal both the glowering Chief Justice's glass of wine and his dinner. Walsh's Falstaff hams it up in an exaggerated limp across the stage - "a pox on this gout" - before pausing for a twinkle-in-the-eye aside - "or a gout on this pox" - concluding with a promise made directly to the audience: "I will turn diseases into commodities."
Swanson uses brief 2.1 scenes as comic relief before the 2.2 set piece with Hal and Poins deceiving Falstaff. Snare and Fang are played as oafish bobbies in blue uniforms and wielding billy-clubs, cartoon cops trying to arrest Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet, a prostitute in a black leather miniskirt, fishnet stockings, and high-heeled boots. Hal and Poins conspire as people dressed in rags shuffle past them and Bardolph ambles by with a wheelbarrow full of personal belongings before he is bribed into silence in the playful deceit: "I have no tongue, sir." The scene plays as farce, with Walsh's Falstaff spilling from his chair, Doll vomiting into a ceramic bowl, Bardolph playing an accordion, and Mistress Quickly drawing a knife. Pistol is portrayed as a pothead in sunglasses, with long gray hair and a longer but ratty black leather coat, wielding a walking stick as Hal and Poins arrive in fake mustaches, fez caps and sparkling red vests over white aprons. They eavesdrop on Falstaff as kitchen help and entertainers, one holding a guitar and the other an accordion. During the mayhem, Bardolph begins playing the saxophone again, and Walsh's Falstaff exclaims to both Doll - "I am old!" - and to the Prince - "no abuse, Hal, no abuse!" - before they rush off to prepare for the impending war.
An effective 3.1, with the titular King making his first appearance in a production already an hour old, begins with a tolling bell in blue-lit midnight, as Joel Colodner's bald and aging Henry IV appears. Wearing a robe and appearing sickly and feeble, he is attended stage right by Warwick as the scene segues into Falstaff's 3.2 review of potential infantry troops. Walsh's Falstaff is joined by the halitosis-ridden Silence, stooped and leaning upon a cane, and Shallow in his big beard and eyeglasses, both characters broadly played. The Page drums amid bright lights and the sound of chirping birds, and despite the heavy-handed portrayals of Shallow and Silence, the parade of recruits is Swanson's most inventive scene, an imaginatively realized insight into Falstaff's low morals. The potential soldiers are colorfully rendered: Mouldy is a manic boxer, quivering and shaking as if a drug addict; the wraithlike Shadow inspires the Page to cross her drumsticks like a crucifix at it; Wart is brought onstage in a wheelbarrow, faceless beneath an old blanket, and too weak to even hold a sword upright; Feeble a lisping tailor, prancing with a measuring tape; and the hulking Bullcalf wears a black vest but no shirt. Walsh's Falstaff concludes the sordid sequence with his ironic recollection of good times - "we have heard the chimes at midnight" - and Swanson follows with a dour 4.1 and an intermission that darkens the mood of the play.
Onstage tables and chairs are covered with plastic foliage to represent Gaultree Forest in 4.1, and the opposing armies make showy blustering speeches to rally their respective armies, then execute a rather stiff parley that leads to an awkward intermission. Swanson resumes with the leadership of the two opposing armies sharing an uneasy toast from small shot glasses, then the surprise arrests and angry exchanges of words. Walsh's Falstaff, licking his lips and squinting as if looking into the sun, wears a pith helmet and arrives as tardy as usual, his pigeon-toed Page hard on his heels, and he smiles and waves, but watches the onstage action very carefully as bells begin to toll. The tolling bells are Henry's, and Swanson's most effectively emotional scene is 4.5, which follows Henry's collapsing and being led back to his bed and wheeled offstage.
Bill Barclay's dashing Hal arrives in a black shirt beneath a black leather jacket as mellow music is played for the dying King. Barclay's Hal becomes fixated by the crown, removing it from its pillow, then hanging it on the bedpost, then taking it back down to cradled in his hands. When he notices the King's arm dangling and his mouth open, he supposes his father has died, and he embraces him emotionally before rushing offstage with the crown. After the recrimination and explanation, the play is at its searing best, with Colodner's Henry rasping advice - "busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels" - to his suddenly good son, then calling "to Jerusalem" as the bells again begin to toll and funeral chants begin. In suddenly very bright light, Barclay's Hal turns to look at the kneeling nobles, registering surprise that he is now King Henry V. He is immediately regal both in action - "you shall be as a father to my youth" - as well as in bearing: "so shall I live to speak my father's words."
Swanson moves toward the conclusion after a brief scene with Silence and Shallow, Obehi Janice's silent Page an observant delight, biting an apple, clapping her hands, dancing, and flinching from Pistol's cane swings as he announces that King Henry IV has died. After Doll Tearsheet is arrested 5.5, her AC/DC rock-and-roll T-shirt stretched tight over her pregnant belly, the cast gathers as witnesses to Hal's ascension to the throne. Tiny flags are handed out to the audience to be waved in patriotic flurry, and Union Jacks are strung on lines between the wooden posts. Barclay's newly crowned King arrives to drumbeats, spurning Walsh's beaming Falstaff - "I know thee not, old man" - and explaining himself: "I have turned away my former self." While Pistol curses in Latin, Walsh's Falstaff falls to a knee then is bustled offstage by the empowered Chief Justice. Swanson continues the conclusion with a segue into Henry V, the Chorus first re-introducing the despondent 2.1 Boars' Head denizens at stage left. Pistol kisses Mistress Quickly sadly, and after she blows her nose into her black satin sleeve - "Falstaff, he is dead" - Bardolph leads them offstage with his drumming. The prolonged conclusion then continues at the opposite side of the stage, as Barclay's Henry takes orb and scepter and listens to the 1.2 claims of the Archbishop against France. When Montjoy offers him a "tun of treasure" in the form of tennis balls, he slaps his knee and laughs heartily, wagging a finger at the herald before rising in anger and flinging the balls bouncing across the stage. Barclay's thundering pride - "no thought in us but France" - causes his court to kneel and Montjoy to cower behind his sword like a crucifix, and Swanson captures the regal Henry V in a spotlight to conclude this ambitious albeit uneven production.