Summary 
Strong black box production designed in original practices with universal lighting and minimal sound effects, and a heavy reliance on performance. The play begins and ends with candle-lit choral chanting in Latin and presents a keen contrast between a retarded King John and an impressively heroic Bastard in Phillip Faulconbridge. The King is an attention-deficit figurehead, humming and practicing his dance steps, waving idiotically at politicians he recognizes but does not know, while the Bastard learns quickly, assuming courtly manners, defying the Duke of Austria, and arranging the fall of Algiers. The key roles are ably supported by a heartbreaking portrayal of Constance, the mother to the doomed true Prince, Arthur, who undergoes an agonizing near-torture death before an accidental fall. The Bastard rises in political skill, and the simpleton King correspondingly falls, not so much to France or the Church, but to his own willful - and murderous - machinations to retain the crown. A clear and concise examination of complex historical events that never fails to entertain.
Design
Directed by Tim Carroll. Designed by Carolyn M. Smith. Lighting Design by Kevin Fraser. Compositions by Claudio Vena. Sound Design by Todd Charlton.
Cast
Tom McCamus (King John), Patricia Collins (Queen Eleanor), Jennifer Mogbock (Blanche), Stephen Russell (Earl of Salisbury), Sean Arbuckle (Bigot), Wayne Best (Hubert), Daniel Briere (Robert Faulconbridge), Graham Abbey (The Bastard), Peter Hutt (Peter/King of France), Antoine Yared (Dauphin), Noah Jalava (Arthur), Seana McKenna (Constance), Sean Arbuckle (Duke of Austria), Brian Tree (Pandulph).
Analysis
Tim Carroll's production of King John is presented within the black-box Tom Patterson Theatre in the now-fashionable style of original practices, so there is only universal lighting and no amplified sound effects. The setting is traditional, the staging simple, chandeliers above the thrust stage and candelabra lining upstage exits, each with about twenty flickering candles. The cast enters to drumbeats and begins choral chanting in Latin, led by a bald-headed monk wearing brown robes. When they conclude, Tom McCamus's King John is revealed sitting sideways upon his scarlet throne like a bored child in a high chair.
McCamus gives a nuanced portrayal of a very weak King, and his John is not so much inept as emotionally stunted and intellectually retarded. One of two core characters in the play, he is an older man with longish gray hair, so his simple-mindedness has added poignancy, and he seems out of his element in - and nearly bewildered by - the affairs of state. His speech sometimes a high-pitched whine, he charges the French herald 1.1 in a callow attempt to intimidate the man. Upon his arrival 2.1 he gives a delighted finger-wave to the King of France, and during the 3.1 negotiations of "a painted peace," he blows a raspberry and sighs heavily, making a show for everyone of his boredom. After waving happily to Pandulph, he becomes lost from the conversation and instead practices dance-step routines downstage. His fists in balls, his anger looks more like a snit: "I am bound up with inflaming wrath!" During 3.2 he summons Hubert as a murderer of Arthur but can barely concentrate long enough to stay in the conversation, imitating a death knell - "bong, bong, bong" - and staring like a wondering child at the ceiling: "he is a serpent in my way." Told of Eleanor's passing 4.2, he bursts out in laughter then begins to sob - "my mother … dead" - and in the next scene his tantrum is followed by a gran mal seizure. The crown falls free, but upon regaining his awareness, John desperately gets it back atop his royal head.
Carroll contrasts McCamus's John with the force of will and street smarts of Phillip, the Bastard. Graham Abbey's Bastard is galvanizing from his first scene, learning courtly manners from close observation of his legitimate brother, then insulting him - to the delight of Eleanor - as "Sir Knob." He raises his arms and shouts after being knighted 1.1, later leaping and punching the air upon receiving reluctant confirmation from his mother that his father was indeed Richard the Lion-Hearted. A natural hero, he addresses the audience in soliloquy, promising violence if his royal lineage is challenged by anyone: "I'll send his soul to hell." In contrast to John's ineffectual confrontation with the Herald, Abbey's burly Bastard stands nose to nose with the Duke of Austria 2.1. The King looks amused but then gets lost in humming, tapping his foot with his hands on his hips. The Duke seems a formidable adversary, wearing long hair in a skullet around his bald head, sporting a lion cloak with the animal's open-mouthed roar over his left shoulder. During 3.1 the two men wage single combat to pounding drumbeats, and the Bastard returns from upstage holding the Duke's long-haired head as well as the lions-head cloak. He jokingly offers the severed head to a patron in the first row, and when the man recoils, Abbey laughs and gives another patron the skull while tossing the cloak to the first man.
Abbey's Bastard demonstrates developing political skill with the 2.1 siege of Algiers. The pragmatic mayor stands in the balcony upstage, playing both sides against the other below, the blue French flag unfurled at center stage alongside English soldiers with red berets and red-and-blue flag. The Bastard wearies quickly of the political machinations - "I was never so bethumped with words" - and belittles the Dauphin falling so quickly in love with Blanche: "mad world, mad kings, mad composition." His suggestion of a temporary alliance against the citizens of Algiers draws the surprise of everyone, especially the Mayor - "let it be so" - and his assault on political commodity is directed toward the audience, with a seated patron singled out:"there is no sin but to be rich." But the Bastard's pragmatism cannot resolve the capitulation of France to the Church and Cardinal Pandulph: "England, I will fall from thee."
Carroll unfolds the complex political story with quick precision, and the supporting characters are well performed, especially the emotionally volatile Constance. Stratford star Seana McKenna plays Constance not so much as a smothering mother but as a parent with an ill-divining soul for the future of her son. She hovers over him 2.1, the boy looking Bieber-like in cream-colored clothing and aloof royal air, and during 2.2 it is as if she cannot help herself from stammering on, even when she realizes no one is listening. By 3.3 she is beside herself, the French King and Cardinal Pandulph consorting in the balcony above her as she laments onstage - "amiable, lovely death!" - playing with her hair in eerie near-madness, tears welling in her eyes. The Queen Mother, Eleanor, is played as an Elizabeth I prototype, prudish and stuffy in a red gown with a white collar, and Peter Hutt plays the King of France as smartly pragmatic - just the sort the Bastard despises - a gray-goateed politician clad in black with a white collar, gold chains, a flattened hat, and a bluish-green cape. He wisely separates the Bastard from the Duke of Austria outside Algiers in 2.1, and despite applause from John and Eleanor during 2.2, makes a dramatic show of rejecting John's handshake in 3.1.
Carroll stages the Act 4 scenes with the young Arthur and his potential assassin Hubert as the turning point in King John's story, as the King falls from merely insipid to outright wicked. The scenes bookend McCamus's weeping but disingenuous King - "I repent" - beginning with the reluctant Hubert as he sets up a wooden chair with thick ropes beside a little furnace and hot irons. Wayne Best's agonized Hubert finally relents to Arthur's pleas - "I will not touch thy eyes" - and sits beside the kneeling boy, then in 4.3, he must defend his actions to McCamus's King - "here's your hand and seal!" - who is clad only in a robe outlined with the images of crowns. The import is apparent - "five moons were seen tonight" - the robed King trying to snatch his orders from Hubert, then moving away, as the Bieberish Arthur appears briefly in the balcony, high above upstage center. When McCamus's John pivots, his robe trails behind him, and Carroll delivers his finest stage image: as the King walks back downstage, the crumpled body of the now-fallen Arthur is revealed from beneath the passing cover of the royal robe.
Act 5 moves quickly, the now white-robed John celebrating with a dance that defies the prophesy against him on Ascension Day, then dropping as if struck to one knee with the news that Arthur has died. Abbey's Bastard advises courage - "be as great in act as you have been in thought" - but the King attempts to flee, and in 5.2 the French soldiers march onstage past the seated King, turning to obscure him from the audience to the ominous sound of drumbeats and the raising of the French flag. McCamus's King John is returned to the stage poisoned upon a stretcher 5.3, and he dies sitting up with little drama, still worthy of the loyalty of Abbey's Bastard. A new King is crowned and Carroll concludes his slick and efficient history play with more choral chanting.