Summary 
A cleverly directed and surprisingly entertaining outdoor production of an almost actionless transition play, with a memorably-played Falstaff bolstered by strong portrayals of an intelligent but boyish Hal and a rapidly waning monarch in King Henry. An odd modernization - Rumour in a Rolling Stones T-shirt with some rock music scoring and the Boars' Head denizens smoking cigarettes and drinking Budweiser - with focus on old fat Jack.
Design
Directed by Lisa Peterson. Scenic design by Rachel Hauck. Costume design by David C. Wooland. Lighting design by Jane Cox. Original music and Sound design by Paul James Prendergast. Fights by U. Jonathan Toppo.
Cast
Rodney Gardiner (Rumour/Pistol), Al Espinosa (Lord Bardolph/Warwick), Jeffrey King (Northumberland/Westmoreland), Mark Bedard (Hastings/Feeble), Michael J. Hume (Archbishop of York/Silence), Chris White (Mowbray/Peto/Bullcalf), Michael Winters (Falstaff), Braden Day (Page), Jack Willis (Lord Chief Justice), Kimberly Scott (Mistress Quickly), Eddie Lopez (Fang/Wart/Thomas), Brian Demar Jones (Fang/Mouldy), Brent Hinkley (Bardolph), John Tufts (Prince Hal), Howie Seago (Poins), Vilma Silva (Lady Northumberland/Davy), Christine Albright (Lady Percy), Nell Geisslinger (Doll Tearsheet), Richard Howard (King Henry IV), James Edmondson (Shallow), Daisuke Tsuji (Shadow/Prince John).
Analysis
Lisa Peterson, her often ingenious direction using small gestures and details to illuminate larger images, begins an oddly modernized Henry IV Part 2 with a clever flashback to Part 1. A theatre-company banner unfurls from the fly in Elizabethan script to announce the players and the play - "a brief but fond recapitulation" - as canned trumpet music gives way to a modern rock score. The deposing of Richard II and his murder are followed by a chaos of rebels and Hal's victory over Hotspur. Part 2 begins with the Induction amid a whistle blast from Rumour, an athletic young black man in a Rolling Stones tongue-and-lips logo T-shirt - "painted full of tongues" - along with jeans, a chain belt, and combat boots. Rumour yanks down the long white banner to dramatic music, and he is tossed a jerkin 1.1 to become Travers, speaking of the rebel forces' fortunes as messengers arrive to deliver bad news to Northumberland. One gives to the old Earl Hotspur's torn and bloody jacket, and Rumour moves upstage - again the impish chorus: part Puck, part demon - to bear witness from the steps of rising grandstands.
Peterson's 1.2 introduces Michael Winters, a completely unaffected jolly old knight with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. Winters' Falstaff is a memorable blend of good spirits and wry wit within old age - think Santa Claus with pox and gout - but so naturally enacted and charmingly performed as to steal the entire show. Clad in a unique orange leather jacket, he coughs and gags while smoking a cigarette, giving his little-boy Page a sloshing urine sample and avoiding the Lord Chief Justice: "tell him I'm deaf." A brief 1.3 is illustrative, thanks to Peterson's evocative stage sense, with rebels looking around warily at the words "pluck a kingdom down" and Hastings offering a sword to the Archbishop, who grasps it readily. But the focus is on Winters' Falstaff, and he is pursued 2.1 by Snare and Fang, both in badges and black but the latter munching a doughnut. He manages to talk himself out of trouble by the end of the scene as Gower arrives with an important letter, then races off as Rumour, pointing and sticking out his tongue. 2.2 includes a jubilant first appearance from John Tufts as Hal, sliding down a ladder from the gallery, then running in airplane-wing circles around the stage, a Union Jack wrapped around him like a cape. Boyish and appealing, he has a wickedly long scar gouged into the right side of his face that belies his playfulness. He communicates with his friend Poins via sign language, and after he pays the Page with a bottle of beer - a startlingly apropos stage image of a jaded older man corrupting a youngster - Peterson again shows a quick glimpse of the rebels, this time highlighted by Lady Northumberland hurling Hotspur's sword and helmet then kneeling in tears beside them.
Peterson's first act is wholly dominated by Winters' wonderful Falstaff, and 2.4 reveals him in his element at the Boar's Head tavern, beneath a boar placard up in the gallery, drenched in scarlet light. Tables are onstage and above, scruffy patrons served by grotesquely clad waitresses who resemble street prostitutes - heels, torn stockings, bright wigs - as cleaning people scrub the floors and red-aproned waiters play air guitar. Falstaff's betrothed is the ghastly Doll Tearsheet, wearing purple fishnets and vomiting noisily into a bucket before scratching at her upper thigh, a purple and black bruise on her arm like a frequent injection site. When Rumour swaggers to the stage, this time as Pistol in urban camo, popping a cap to frighten the whole tavern, he pulls nunchucks and threatens Bardolph, who in turn wields a bottle of ketchup, but the Hostess silences Pistol by nearly smothering him with her bosom. As two exhausted waiters strum a guitar and toy with a piano at stage right, Poins and Hal eavesdrop on Falstaff, who buffaloes past their trick. Hal gives Winters' Falstaff a hearty embrace and accepts a mug of sack, and when he must rush off to the war council, Falstaff reaches for him, but the Prince is gone.
A poignant 3.1 concludes the first act, with the denizens of the Boar's Head still onstage, either asleep or passed out in near darkness on the floor and upon tables. The titular King shuffles to center stage, bemoaning the inability to sleep, sickly and pale as he removes his crown. Rumour, looking like Death itself, scurries upstage, carrying a torch and sticking his tongue out like a maniacal ghoul.
The second act begins with the bucolic 3.2 rural existence of Shallow and Silence, both among baskets of apples, the latter swatting occasionally with a fly swatter. Accompanied by Rumour's martial drumming, Falstaff sips from a bottle of beer in his orange sunglasses as he watches the call of potential soldiers: Mouldy is a swishing black homosexual in a powder blue suit with shoes but no socks, followed by the ghostly Shadow in a dark robe hidden behind red-nosed Bardolph. Wart, his knees shaking comically, collapses and tries to hide, picking his nose as he is selected, and Feeble the tailor wields a mean pair of scissors. Winters' Falstaff of course only selects those who do not offer bribes, and as Rumour resumes drumming, the men are issued rifles: Wart gets his finger stuck in the barrel of his weapon; Shadow leans on the butt of his gun to sleep, the barrel on the stage; and Feeble in a mad panic surprises everyone with excellent rifle drill skills.
The darkly comic moment - these men are cannon fodder - is followed by the 4.1 clash of the armies, with Rumour bearing malevolent witness from the upstage grandstands. Peterson paces with expert quickness as York maneuvers a suspicious peace, then Prince John addresses the rebels' griefs before Rumour leaps in glee as the rebels are dispersed then arrested for treason. Falstaff seemingly captures the more than willing (and prone) Coleville 4.3 before the King appears - in just his second scene - pleased with the news but dropping his scepter and collapsing in a faint.
Tufts' Hal arrives in red 5.1, embracing his bedridden father before trying on the hated crown, whimpering, and staggering off. Called back, he endures the King's scorn, then offers a manly and heartfelt apology before receiving the pivotal "giddy busy minds with foreign quarrels" advice. Pointedly, Tufts' Hal gently returns the crown to the head of his father.
Peterson accelerates the pace even more quickly during Shakespeare's Act 5. Falstaff hears the news of Henry's death and offers a puff of his cigarette to his young Page, his joy separated from his hasty departure by a brief but impressive glimpse of Hal as Henry V, embracing the wisdom of his one-time tormentor, the Lord Chief Justice.
The melancholy conclusion feels inexorable, with Mistress Quickly and Doll Tearsheet arrested 5.4 as the grandstands emerge to center stage and a Union Jack-waving crowd gathers. Tufts' Henry V appears in the balcony, crowned and sceptered and all in gleaming white, golden streamers and confetti falling around him as trumpets sound, and he begins to descend the grandstands 5.5.
Winters' expectant Falstaff moves up the steps to meet him but is shunned and stunned - "I know thee not, old man" - as the crowd quiets into slow motion. Tufts' King rejects his fat old compatriot as "the feeder of my riots" and Winters' Falstaff falls to his hands and knees and is arrested by the Lord Chief Justice.
Peterson's concluding epilogue includes a bookend-like montage of scenes from Henry V, with the arrival of Princess Katherine and Tufts' Henry shouting "once more unto the breach!" The stirring final moment blunts the heart-breaking rejection of Falstaff, a memorable end to a very well-directed but dramatically sparse history play.