The Day of Henry

After a brief 3 1/2 hour break, this evening I returned to the Thomas Theatre, and saw OSF’s production of Henry IV, Part 2. This was a lot of Henry IV in one day, but it was a great way to see the full arc of the story, and it was another very good production. While the two parts had different directors, they used the same principle actors, and the staging was the same. Falstaff was again wonderfully played by the understudy, and interestingly replacing him in the roles he would normally play was Ted Lange of Love Boat fame. It’s great to see the growth of Hal to King Henry over the course of the two plays. It’s also sad to see the arc of Falstaff who starts out as prince Hal’s bad influence buddy, and ends up banished from his presence. I kind of feel the play of Part 2 is a bit weaker, and I kind of understand why it’s performed less, and why CalShakes did that hybrid version. So glad I got to see these plays together. It was really good. Seeing this also removed the asterisk on my canon completion as this was my first complete production of Henry IV, Part 2. A bit like binge watching TV series, I wish I could go to Henry V tomorrow.
Trailer
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