The R.S.C. Debuts in a New Home

By T. E. Kalem

HENRY IV, PARTS 1 AND 2 by William Shakespeare

Barbican means fortification or defense. Remnants of Roman walls exist in the City of London, where the Barbican Center, a $280 million arts-cum-business complex, has been erected. Slabs and columns of pebbled concrete suggest a fortress built in modern medieval style. Splashed with bright reds and oranges on the inside to soften the austerity of the stone, the Barbican, which officially opened in March, is a labyrinth in which crowds still wander like students during freshman week, seeking the proper doors and directions. The center contains Barbican Hall, home of the London Symphony Orchestra, three cinemas, an art gallery, two restaurants and the Barbican Theater, which last week became the new London home of the Royal Shakespeare Company, replacing the venerable Aldwych Theater. With a thrust stage, and no seat farther than 65 ft. from the stage, the theater's novelty may be that it has no aisles: playgoers enter their rows from outside the orchestra according to lighted alphabetical letters.

The R.S.C. makes its debut with Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, performed on successive evenings or, on matinee days, in a single afternoon and evening. The opening productions are stolid, earnest and distinctly uninspired. The occasion totally lacks the incandescent flow that made the company's Nicholas Nickleby a unique theatrical experience. In tone Part 1 has a springtime mood, life blooming to be grasped; Part 2 is autumnal, life slipping away beyond one's grasp.

Henry IV, Part 1, has one huge epicenter, that Santa Claus of roguery, Sir John Falstaff. The old knight is as nimble of wit as his belly is full of sack, a braggart, a liar, a thief, a cynic and a coward, but with all that an irresistibly endearing tub of bubbling jollity. Early on, Falstaff (Joss Ackland) chides the heir apparent Prince Hal (Gerard Murphy), who has made the Boar's Head Tavern his home away from the castle, for leading him into evil ways.

King Henry (Patrick Stewart) fears the reverse, that his scapegrace son has been corrupted by dissolute companions. He is depressed by the thought that when Hal ascends the throne, the realm will dissolve in chaos. Chaos abounds as it is. Scotland and Wales are in rebellion, and the noble families who helped Henry to overthrow Richard II are now conspiring to overthrow him. Paradoxically, the King admires one of those conspirators, Harry Percy (Timothy Dalton), known as Hotspur. He so cherishes Hotspur's valor that he wishes he had him for a son.

The fighting is hot, but the staging is horrific. One worries more about the actors than about friend or foe. Part of the blame rests with the set. A conundrum at best, it consists of three-tiered automatically movable towers of ill-assorted lum ber, through which the actors peek out like birds in wooden cages. During the battle scenes these towers rumble about the stage firing off errant fusillades, al most running down the soldiers as if they were pedestrians.

In the battle's climactic scene, Hal, who has been reconciled with his father, engages Hotspur in grueling hand-to-hand combat and slays him. Next he sees the body of Falstaff, who is simulating death ("The better part of valor is discretion"). Symbolically, Hal |has accreted Hotspur's 'virtues and sloughed off Falstaff's vices. Yet he is, sas Director Trevor Nunn discerningly stresses, the child of two fathers.

Part 2 chronicles a rather melancholy series of events. The coldest and most calculating brother of Prince Hal, John (Kevin Wallace), promises amnesty to the last of the rebel leaders, the Archbishop of York (John Burgess), and then breaks that promise, condemning the arch bishop to the execution block. The King dies.

Falstaff is still fun ny but subdued. The only fresh comic air in the play comes from Justice Shallow (Robert Eddison), a rustic breed of reverse Solomon, silly but sweet.

It is Henry V newly crowned who strikes Falstaff down on the coronation march. Nourishing his only grand delusion, Sir John calls out to his Boar's Head darling: "My King! My Jove!" Replies Henry V: "I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers." Realpolitik can steel any ruler to deny his father twice.

The R.S.C.'s major casting error was to pick Murphy for Prince Hal. He has no drop of the blood royal in him, and the only place where he might pass for a prince would be as a boutique keeper in Carnaby Street. The major triumph belongs to Joss Ackland in the grandest role Shakespeare ever wrote apart from his tragic heroes. Ackland is every inch Sir John, and that covers a formidable amount of territory. -- T.E. Kalem

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