Summary 
Handsome staging of Shakespeare's reverent depiction of Henry VIII's struggle against the unscrupulous Cardinal Wolsey. Surrounded by pageantry and spectacle, the heroic King emerges as triumphant father of his heir Elizabeth.
Design
Directed by Richard Monette. Design by Ann Curtis. Lights by Kevin Fraser. Sound by Jim Neil. Choreographed by Shona Morris.
Cast
Graham Abbey (Henry VIII), Seana McKenna (Katherine), Stephen Russell (Norfolk), Thom Allison (Suffolk), Sara Topham (Anne Bullen), Raymond O'Neill (Buckingham), Ian Deakin (Thomas Lovell), Walter Borden (Wolsey), Keith Dinicol (Campeius), Brian Tree (Cranmer).
Analysis
In directing Henry VIII, Richard Monette focuses on the struggles between the three primary characters, and although he fills the stage with peripheral characters and attendants, he never lets them become a distraction, and he minimizes potentially uninteresting scenes. The result is an absorbing study of political power struggles and religious reformation.
Monette's production revolves around the interactions between Cardinal Wolsey, King Henry, and Queen Katherine, with the remainder of the cast of thirty-two along the sides or deep upstage. Elaborately costumed in traditional Tudor style, the noblemen wear heavy doublets and tunics of muted color, and the women wear long gowns and head-dresses. The clergymen are adorned in shades of red, the bishops in fiery scarlet robes, the cardinals a bit pinker, and clerics in yet a lighter shade. Monette's stage is crowded but never busy, with lesser characters posed and merely ornamental, a courtly audience to the central political conflicts. As the production begins, the stage is adorned in gold drapery and orange-lit from candelabra.
Walter Borden's Wolsey, slight and hunched but with a commanding croak of a voice, consistently deceives the King while disguising his own Macbeth-like ambition within religious vehemence. When Henry shreds the proposed taxation papers during 1.2, Wolsey slithers downstage to stage-whisper to a toady that the word be spread to the people that he has convinced the King to change his mind. Moments later, when Graham Abbey's robust Henry shouts, "Break up the court!" after demanding divorce from Katherine, Borden's Wolsey wrings his hands downstage center, round-eyed and scheming. The snakish performance drives the first act of the production, but when Wolsey is accused of cardinal sins and endures a chair violently overturned at his feet by his opponents, his humility is less than convincing. Borden's Wolsey lets fly the inventory pages that incriminate him, but the magnificent "never to hope again" speech deserves more power - it bears the majesty and tragedy of a man ambitious enough to wish to be Pope - than Borden's rasp as he slumps into a bench at the edge of the stage. Borden's final moments are effective, however, as he begins to weep as he surrenders his ring to Cromwell.
Abbey's Henry VIII is strongly portrayed, propped by pageantry and spectacle. During a 1.4 dance to the tune of "Greensleeves," the young, handsome, masked Henry meets and woos Anne Bullen ("the fairest hand I ever touched!") and during 2.4 he confidently stands upstage as a religious procession bearing crucifixes enters the court and kneels before his presence. After deliberations, Abbey's Henry, torn between Catholicism and Protestation, falls to his knees and tears the crucifix from around his neck to signal the first interval.
The second act begins with a rousing display of athleticism and swordsmanship from the King and ends with the heralding of Queen Anne (and the death of Katherine) as thunder rumbles in the distance: a triumphant, golden-lit Henry rears up on a neighing steed amid billowing upstage fog. Although Abbey's character and his religious and political struggles are the focal point of the play, Seana McKenna's heartrending performance as the saintly Katherine is the highlight. During the proceedings of 2.4, McKenna's Queen prostrates herself before Henry, but she soon courageously rushes to her feet and confronts not only the King but the soldiers and clerics poised onstage, as well as the black-hooded men bearing crosses above her in the balcony. After the interval, the broken-hearted Queen languishes in a blue-lit sewing circle with her ladies-in-waiting, listening to a song in a quiet counterpoint. The later scene in which Katherine lay dying (4.2) provides the most poignant moment of the production: with Wolsey's coffin onstage in the starlight, the sickly Katherine rests as masked spirits of peace appear and dance around her, attired in white and garlanded like angels. Her distraught "I can no more" ushers in act five.
Abbey's Henry, now bearded, plays card games and awaits Lovell's news of the birth of his heir, Elizabeth. After the masterful handling of the noblemen and the elevation of Cranmer, at the height of which the enraged King tears a cloth from a table and sends the setting crashing to the stage floor, yet another masque ensues. This masque features joyous singers wielding tambourines, and the christening of the Princess Elizabeth concludes the production. With stained glass reflecting light behind him, Henry cradles Shakespeare's future queen in the balcony, the bishops gathered below. Elizabeth represents a resounding triumph for Henry, both politically and religiously, with his reign and the Protestant church firmly established.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.23, No.1, Spring 2005.