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devised and directed by John Barton

Triumph Entertainment, Ltd. & Mirvish Productions, Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto

January 22-February 29, 2004

The overriding reason to see The Hollow Crown is to see four great British actors—Alan Howard, Vanessa Redgrave, Ian Richardson and Sir Donald Sinden--on stage together.  Beside this, the director is John Barton, co-founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, who originally wrote this entertainment in 1960, making the show a unique opportunity to gain some insight into the reasons the RSC has continued as a touchstone for acting in English.

The show itself is a trifle, first meant as a one-off divertissement, that happened to become a popular calling card for the RSC over the years, assembled from excerpts of plays, poems, diaries, trial transcripts and chronicles by and about British monarchs from William I to Queen Victoria.  The four actors, books in hand, seated at a table on a bland set, exult in that great ability nutrtured in British dramatic training to conjure up characters and images by use of the voice alone.  Redgrave is a rivetting Anne Boleyn in prison and a very funny 15-year-old Jane Austen as she pens her own gleefully biased English history.  Richardson vividly contrasts Charles I and II, the first struggling to contain his outrage as a court condemns him, the second an upper-class twit announcing his marriage.  Sinden uses his cavernous voice to great effect as a lubricious Henry VIII and a nearly gaga George III.  Howard, a vocal chameleon, is hilarious as the priggish, Scots-accented James I issuing a condemnation of tobacco.  Joining the actors is Stephen Gray, whose period songs and ballads often give us a glimpse of the common man.

   

Wonderful as it is to see these actors, the show is much like eating a plateful of hors-d’oeuvres instead of dinner.  At the end you feel hungry to see a real play.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2004-02-05.

Photo: Ian Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave, Donald Sinden, Alan Howard. ©2004 RSC.