By Ilana Jael
As a 21st-century theater critic working without a time machine, it certainly isn’t every day that I get to cover the world premiere of a William Shakespeare play. No, the Bard isn’t back from beyond the grave, but Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival is breaking new ground with its biggest production this year, which features a brand-new script constructed by its artistic director Trent Stephens.
In this original adaptation, Stephens seeks to bring new theatrical spark to Shakespeare’s Henry IV, a two-part history play. To streamline its sprawling plot into something a little more stageable, he takes the innovative strategy of shifting the story’s focus towards John Falstaff, a hard-partying knight whose roguish charm has made him the saga’s breakout character.
In fact, Falstaff proved such a beloved figure in Henry IV that the Bard brought him back from an off-stage death described in Henry V to serve as the protagonist of his later play The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Still, it’s only in Stephens’ ambitious experiment that Falstaff formally takes his place with the likes of Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth as the title character of Falstaff, which is principally a retelling of the story in the two parts of Henry IV, but incorporates bits and pieces from all four of these established texts.
Though the resulting amalgamation succeeds more in that retelling than in living up to the potential of its stated premise and title, high production values and a high-energy cast do much to camouflage this shortcoming and some other noticeable weaknesses of the text. More than I might have expected from the antiquated language alone, the extensive cuts — combined with my own lack of familiarity with the notoriously dense source material — sometimes made it difficult to follow what was happening, let alone invest in the story emotionally as it unfolded.
For whatever nuance is lost in transition, the play does seem to gain narrative momentum from this retooling, and it’s to the production’s credit that I remained engaged even during moments when I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening. In other words, Falstaff stayed consistently entertaining even when it wasn’t always comprehensible — a point in its favor for the not-insignificant number of theatregoers likely to wander into a free Shakespeare in the Park production with even less familiarity with the source material than I had.
Or, for instance, anybody who decides to take on the play in full Falstaffian spirit and load up their picnic bag with booze for the occasion. For now, I will neither confirm nor deny that I was a member of this particular contingency at this past Thursday’s opening night performance — but the fact that a festival-sponsored beer tent opened up in time to serve the following night’s patrons leads me to believe that my suggestion isn’t totally out-of-pocket.
All impromptu beverage pairings aside, the first step to ensuring a good Falstaff is securing a great Falstaff, and in this production, leading actor Patrick Price proves the perfect man for the job.
A PBShakes veteran and brilliant physical comedian, Price seems to effortlessly embody the energy of the character equally well when speaking serious soliloquies and delivering shameless fart jokes. Fittingly, the piece was at its best whenever he got to take the stage, and I could actually imagine a more successful version of Falstaff that functioned more like a greatest hits reel for the character, incorporating a lot more tomfoolery from Merry Wives to make up for the elimination of some of the Henry subplots that don’t involve the knight as a key player.
As it was, though, the play drew enough from Henry IV to remain structurally focused on original protagonist Prince Hal’s emotional and political journey rather than making Falstaff feel like the real center of gravity. Luckily, a strong anchoring performance from Kyler O’Brien as Hal is powerful enough to keep this journey plenty compelling in its own right, especially when combined with the fine performance of Christian Anderson as his formidable father Henry IV.
Notably, Price, O’Brien, and Anderson are the only three actors that get the privilege of playing a single character, with the other seven members of the show’s ensemble tasked with shapeshifting into whatever “others” the plot requires along with playing one or two main parts.
All mostly excelled in the task at hand, with Hannah Hayley’s portrayal of Lady Percy and Greta von Unruh’s of Hostess Quickly — two of the show’s more distinctive female characters — making their performances feel particularly worthy of mention. Penny Williams’ thoughtful costume design, together with the actors’ distinct physical and vocal choices, generally made these rapid transformations easy enough to follow.
A two-tier set is simple but functional, and the space is used quite well in Stephens’ commendable staging and expert direction of the piece. Especially given the unusual constraints of their outdoor amphitheater venue, the play was remarkably well done from a technical standpoint aside from a few brief mic glitches, though my ability to understand what was being spoken was also sometimes diminished by actors who seemed to be rushing through their lines.
All in all, any Falstaff fanatics who make the decision to attend this play based on the name alone will probably get enough of their problematic fave in this piece to not leave Falstaff disappointed. This piece also might offer South Florida theatregoers the rare chance to see more of Henry IV staged than they’re likely to catch anywhere else in the region anytime soon.
If you do go, I’d definitely recommend arriving at least an hour ahead of the show’s 8 p.m. start time — not solely to secure your seat or allow time to hit the beer tent, but to enjoy some unique pre-show entertainment provided by Devon “The Sonnet Man” Glover. In setting some of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets and soliloquies to hip-hop music and performing them in a rap style, Glover makes the well-worn texts he performs feel truly new again — no time machine required.
If You Go
The Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival‘s presentaition of Falstaff runs Thursday through Sunday, July 16-19, at the Seabreeze Amphitheater, 750 S. Jimmy Buffet Memorial Highway in Jupiter. All performances start at 8 pm and are free, with a suggested donation of $5 per person. Visit pbshakespeare.org to learn more.