HENRY IV
By William Shakespeare, adapted by Dakin Matthews
Produced by Theatre for a New Audience. Directed by Eric Tucker, scenic design: Jimmy Stubbs, lighting design: Nicole E. Lang, costume design: Catherine Zuber and AC Gottlieb, sound design: Jane Shaw, music direction: PJ Ju, fight director: Jacob Grigolia-Rosenbaum, properties director: Jonno Knust, associate scenic designer: Kim Zhou
Cast featuring William Bednar, Jordan Bellow, Steven Epp, Nigel Gore, Slate Holmgren, Elijah Jones, PJ Ju, John Keating, Owen Laheen, Dakin Matthews, Cara Ricketts, Michael Rogers, Jay O. Saunders, Sandra Shipley, James Udom, and Elan Zafir
REVIEWS:
“Key to Tucker’s enjoyable staging is how the flexible 299-seat Polonsky Shakespeare Center space has been configured by scenic designer Jimmy Stubbs into an arena to keep the performers in close circumstances with spectators. Often they occupy “offstage” seats along the four aisles leading to the central acting area, which is simply a green and white chessboard. Peripheral areas around the auditorium harbor clothes racks of 15th-century garments that the actors resort to whenever they switch their characters, which many of them do frequently.” — Michael Sommers, New York Stage Review
“This production meets the eye humbly, no more than a small stage with two chairs. Then, largely through the force of its language—wisely foregrounded by the director, Eric Tucker, and vivified by a cast with several standouts … it grows to encompass a murmuring woods, a raucous pub, and the rocky, sometimes treacherous terrain of personal ambition.” — Dan Stahl, The New Yorker
“Scenic designer Jimmy Stubbs’s chessboard patterns on the floor of the raised circular center stage cleverly suggests the kind of mental maneuvering belying some of these characters’ dialogue and actions. That kind of stylistic playfulness keeps this Henry IV consistently engaging.” – Kenji Fujishima, TheaterMania