By James Karas
The Last Wife is a provocative,
dramatic and thoroughly enjoyable non-historical drama. The Stratford Festival
has staged Kate Hennig’s play at the small Studio Theatre near the end of the
season. It has saved the best for last and the play should receive many more
productions.
The last wife of the title is Katherine Parr,
the last spouse of King Henry VIII who nursed him in the last years of his life
and survived him.
Joseph Ziegler as Henry and Maev Beaty as Kate in The Last Wife.
Photography by David Hou.
Hennig’s Kate is intelligent, well educated,
strong, passionate, principled and (most of the time) politically astute. She
lives in a patriarchal society where women are considered as sexual objects
when it pleases men and as chattels when it suits them. Maev Beaty incorporates
all these characteristics in her bravura performance.
Henry VIII is an arrogant dictator who does
not brook any disagreement, rules by whim and has the power and the ability to
execute almost anyone. Hennig does give him some redeeming characteristics such
as his love of music and his ability to change his mind but they do not detract
from his essential being of a capricious thug with a crown.
Joseph Ziegler does a masterful job as Henry.
His Henry may be the lion in winter but he has lost none of his brutality and
selfishness. We are told that Henry is overweight but Ziegler is a fairly fit
king.
Kate and Henry dominate the play with Bess
(Bahia Watson), the future Queen Elizabeth I and Mary (Sara Farb), the future
Queen “Bloody” Mary playing important roles in the fractured relationships of the “family.” They are angry, rejected,
hateful and bitter as Henry’s daughters whom he considers bastards.
The young Jonah Q. Gribble plays Eddie, the
future King Edward IV and Gareth Potter is the passionate Thom Seymour who is
in love with Kate.
Kate tries to navigate the shoals of a
society that is closed to women, a husband who is capable of having her
executed and his children with whom she tries to establish meaningful contact. A
warrant is issued for her arrest and she uses her sexual attraction to avoid
being beheaded.
The play is not a costume drama set in 15th
century England. It is a modern play with the actors wearing contemporary
costumes and speaking with Canadian accents. Director Alan Dilworth delivers
the wit, fast-paced drama, intelligence and sheer theatricality of Hennig’s
play faultlessly.
The names and a few of the events in the play
are historical but almost all the rest comes from Hennig’s imagination.
This is lousy history but great theatre.
__________
The Last Wife by Kate Hennig played until October 9,
2015 at the Studio Theatre. Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca
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