Tudors, Tudors Everywhere: A Man For All Seasons @ Chichester Festival Theatre
I love Robert Bolt’s play, but I think I love the Zinnemann 1966 movie version with Paul Scofield, Wendy Hillier, Susannah York and Robert Shaw. I’ve never seen this staged before — so this was such a treat! It’s also the flipside of Mantel’s Wolf Hall and The Mirror and the Light.
Again following the minimalist staging so beloved of stagey UK producers/directors, we thankfully had enough of a Tudor stone archway, some wood paneling, a roaring fire and costumes — with hats! and proper hoods not headbands! to evoke the period. We began with a beautifully barrel twisted legged writing table and chairs, with a pewter jug and goblets — and began post-interval with a roaring fake fire in the fireplace.
How exciting when Tudors appear on the stage entering through the audience — how terrifying when King Henry VIII (he is, he is!) enters the same way. Watch your heads, ladies. Unlike Arthur Miller, this play doesn’t try to make a pointed comparison with modern times, although it does make you think about ethics, systems of power and conscience.
Unlike so many recent Tudor movies, we meet a young and vigorous Henry VIII here. He is enchanting — playful, athletic, educated, intelligent, a lover of dance and music, learned, charming — and yet very egotistical. But he’s also a king who loves his country and wants to do right by it. (Maybe even divorcing his wife of 20 years for a younger one to produce a male heir for the good of the kingdom).
Sir Thomas More (Martin Shaw) is an aged, learned, most Catholic Chancellor — and desperately trying to keep faith out of law and politics. But he can’t ignore his conscience. Dancing around them all is a fabulously charismatic Edward Bennett as Thomas Cromwell, the King’s collector of information, rising man and hints of a street fighter. He won’t use torture, but kindness, to get More on the King’s side and support the royal divorce. Every time he’s on stage, he fizzes with intelligence and suppressed energy to do the King’s bidding, observing people, their flaws and pulling strings; such as offering More’s gaoler a fee and an oath if he overhears anything. And not above unkindness — removing the wine from Richard Rich and holding his hand over a candle to get information on the More household — what they’re saying and thinking…(And enjoying Rich’s pain as he does so). The production also plays on the heights of the two actors with Cromwell towering over (and lording it over) More, who is not bowed down.
For he’s up against a master lawyer — More has copies of his letters and witnesses. He’s careful. He won’t even open the Emperor’s letter Chapuys brings him — and makes sure that there are witnesses to note this action.
A more minimalist More household than the famous More family Holbein painting would suggest, this play focuses on More, his wife Alice, his highly educated and much loved daughter Margaret (Annie Kingsnorth). Margaret is trying to get married to William Roper (Sam Phillips), who has embraced the teachings of Luther and other reformers, teetering on becoming a proto-Puritan. All of which turns More off of him for a time, until he repents of his harshness and realises that Roper can be useful for distracting the gaoler from the time with dice and good wine.
Less charming and feisty than in the movie, Margaret here was her father’s intellectual confidante, horrified by her embarrassing future husband preaching in front of his future father-in-law and in tears as she’s used to try and change More’s mind and conscience in prison. Worryingly in this production, both More women seemed to have ideas about their fashion station — widely breaking sumptuary laws of the time by both wearing gold gowns or kirtles. Thankfully Henry VIII (Orlando James) seemed not to have noticed this abuse of the law and privilege when he descended on them via ‘His river’ for supper and entertainment. Sadly too, apart from once, all the Tudor men stayed firmly in boots — they should have been wearing shoes indoors!!! But there were hats, hoods and beards!!! and proper materials and stylings — no slabs of fur hanging off the men’s gowns or gauzy Alice bands for the Tudor ladies. No wonder Richard Rich (Calum Finlay) was longing to get an opulent male status symbol gown — and he did, but at what cost.
Most of all, this is Gary Wilmot’s play as ‘The Common Man’ or literally ‘Everyman’ as he plays all the servants, the gaolers — and possibly the executioner at the end. A cheeky narrator bantering with the audience, he guides us through these times — and gives us a sense of what ordinary people were thinking and feeling, in a society where both faith and money talk. He’s a boatman, More’s butler, the uncorruptible gaoler, the innkeeper (of the Loyal Servant) and amusingly tries to leave the stage as he’s finished, only to be summoned back by Cromwell and told to put yet another hat on. ‘If the cap fits…’ It’s also a bit Stoppard at points with a play within a play! and Wilmot’s charismatic performance makes us want him on stage all the time.
Equally brilliant was Abigail Cruttenden as Alice More, who voiced her mind, and though not her husband’s intellectual equal, was able to express her concern, love and fury at the whole situation. Richard Rich moved from powerful lord to lord seeking position and influence — and money for that gown! Ironically and horribly becoming Cromwell’s notetaker against his former friend. Norfolk, normally shown as a shouty, bullying bore, was brilliantly played by Timothy Watson in a jaunty feather trailing cap. Here, though, obsessed by hawking, he respected and honoured More, was capable of being kind and sensitive and wanting to keep the status quo, trying to persuade his friend to join the line of signatories. (I enjoyed too how much Timothy Watson naturally inhabited his costume, impatiently and grandly sweeping aside the pleated skirts of his gown to sit down at More’s tribunal). Even Margaret (who More says understands his heart) tries to persuade her father to do one thing and say another. But he can’t — his conscience matters; he can’t sleep through sermons as other lords do. Words matter and he’s literally taken them to heart — and he can’t go against his conscience, because eternity matters too. He needs to be right before God — no matter what. Orlando James played a terrifically magnificent, sociable, amiable, vigorous and charming Henry VIII — enraptured by his music played at a whistle’s command — and thrown by the Latin erudition of More’s daughter, perhaps overshadowing his own learning and ambitions as a writer.
My learning was that Spanish Ambassador Chapuys was French and he was charmingly played by Asif Khan. Though less charming to his attendant (Hari Kang) who got slapped in a moment of frustration when More refused to join in the political game with the Emperor and Catherine of Aragon. Though More is clearly on Team Queen Catherine’s side as he can’t condone the King divorcing his wife, his Queen of 20 years for a replacement or corrupting the Pope and the church and churchmen to achieve this.
Floating in the background are Wolsey and Cranmer, but this is more about law, ethics and how people use or misuse the law to get what they want. As More says, England is covered in man-made laws, which keep people at a forced peace with each other and allows justice. Woe to those trying to enact ‘God’s Laws’ on their own initiative or seeking to break down laws for one personal outcome.
What is the Law worth, the play asks us? More’s trial is a mockery as nothing can be proved. He flaws their arguments with his evidenced, documented and witnessed rebuttals, and his peers all end up on his side, murmuring kindnesses. There’s no evidence either way — and he’s allowed to go to bed, though with no books and certainly no forthcoming family visit. Pondering in the background is Cromwell, seeking to do the King’s will — no matter what (and perhaps insert his own will into the King’s conscience). Alarmingly, he’s worked out how manipulated the King can be by suggestion.
Most of all, we did get a glimpse of a different time — when faith mattered and had meaning and changed worlds. More’s spot-lit kneeling prayer and dusty hugs in prison rend the heart. Equally heart-rending is when his family are literally pulled off of his, Alice More spitting threats against gaoler and King. We really see More’s frailty and vulnerability in these scenes and how much he’s battling to prepare himself to make a good death.
Worse still is when More kneels down on the scaffold to face a traitor’s death. Plunged into darkness, a lot of the audience started clapping — were we applauding More, the end of the play or the execution? Only we weren’t as there was more — Gary Wilmot came back on to give us a prologue, just as he had already given us spoilers by telling us who died and who survived to old age — Rich ironically!
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