"The War of the Roses" at Cal Shakes

Cal Shakes photo by Kevin Berne

As I noted recently, there are not very many Shakespeare plays that I have yet to see performed. Among those is the set of history plays collectively depicting the life of Henry VI, which comes in three parts as written. Because of its sheer length and verbosity, the trio of Henry VI plays is rarely produced at all, and is generally condensed considerably. So I've seen bits and adaptations, but never a full version.

I'm in something of a quandary now, after seeing the California Shakespeare Theater production of The War of the Roses, which they describe as adapted "from William Shakespeare's Henry VI trilogy and Richard III". Totaling almost four hours (including an intermission), Roses is roughly half and half of the Henry plays and Richard III. So I still haven't seen a full version of Henry VI, but I have now seen a lot of it.

The Play

As usual, I'm not going to try to summarize the plot of Shakespearean history plays. This basically picks up with the untimely, relatively young death of Henry V, whose son Henry was crowned king as an infant. His uncle Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, served as Lord Protector until Henry achieved his adulthood and dismissed him. Meanwhile, the French territory won by Henry V was slowly frittered away, and ultimately bargained away by the Earl of Suffolk, who has designs of his own. So there is dissension and unrest in England under Henry, and lots of intrigue and machinations within the extended royal family.

The big split in the ruling Plantagenet family comes between the factions nominally supporting Henry (including Suffolk) called the House of Lancaster, and opposing him, led by the Duke of York and called the House of York. The factions signify themselves with red or white roses, respectively. Hence, the name of the play. Because the conflict does devolve into civil war (more than once) between the factions.

And of course loyalties switch as we go along. Ultimately, this all traces back to the same contested lines of succession that characterize the several generations (and four Shakespeare plays) reaching back to Richard II and his rival, the eventual Henry IV. Rising from the ruins of the House of York as the Henry portion of the play winds down, York's sons, including Richard, who will eventually connive his way to the throne as Richard III.

It's a lot to keep track of over the course of many hours. The program had helpful text and illustrations to help out, but mostly it's just fun to watch all the backstabbing and manipulation.

The Production

Given the plethora of characters in the story, they manage to cover them all with a relatively modest sized cast. Everyone plays multiple roles, but never at the same time. As director Eric Ting noted in his curtain speech, the actors only assume new roles when their previous characters die. As luck would have it, lots of characters die in this play.

There are some really terrific performances in this show. Several veteran local actors provide their usual excellent contributions, including Stacy Ross (Humphrey, Edward IV, and the Dutchess of York), Aldo Billingslea (Warwick, Buckingham), and Catherine Leudtke (Winchester, Elizabeth Grey). Some of the younger local stalwarts put in great performances, too, notably Lance Gardner (Suffolk, Rivers, Tyrrel) and Jomar Tagatec (York, Louis XI, Stanley).

I can't go without commenting on the performance of dependable local actor Danny Scheie as Richard III. As he grows from one of York's vengeful sons to become Duke of Gloucester, his menacing, conspiratorial, and eventually maniacal behavior grows steadily and rather quickly. Unfortunately, by the time he's becoming King Richard III, there's not much room for him to build anymore, so it gets a bit old. Also, his years of comic roles seem to seep into his Richard at somewhat odd moments or in inappropriate ways. Overall I found his Richard III much less compelling than his younger roles, which surprised me because if anything, he's a bit old even for the older role.

Throughout the production, Joshua Pollock provides an effective soundscape with is guitar from the side of the stage, and occasionally supplies lines for minor characters (and eventually takes the stage as Catesby toward the end). The set designed by Nina Ball is relatively unobtrusive most of the time, but they made good use of it, particularly as numerous characters were confined to The Tower (never a good sign). The throne at the center of the stage (nearly the whole time) makes for an effective center to the story. After all, that's the thing all the conflict is about.

Bottom Line

Although Richard III is a reasonably well known piece, the Henry VI trilogy is pretty rarely performed. But as noted above, a lot of Richard's early development comes in the latter parts of the Henry plays. This adaptation (by Ting and Cal Shakes dramaturg Philippa Kelly) trims the politics around Henry almost to the bone, such that if you don't know the story, it might be hard to follow. On the other hand, it move pretty quickly and preserves most of Richard's bits. I gather Ting and Kelly each wanted to do either Henry or Richard, and compromised by doing both. I suppose it works. I doubt a strictly Henry production would have drawn the degree of interest, and Richard is less interesting without the lead-in.

Ultimately it's nice to see Cal Shakes dipping a bit deeper into the canon for material. Under Ting's artistic direction the company has moved to diversify its offerings in general, so it's nice to see them choosing some less common Shakespeare works, too.

Overall I would say the show was worth seeing: I always enjoy an evening in the outdoor theater, and this one was well done and different. Unfortunately I had to reschedule my original date (because of our trip to Stratford), so ended up seeing the show's penultimate performance, so it's already closed by the time you read this.

But I will say that I enjoyed all three shows of the Cal Shakes season this year, and am looking forward to seeing their remount of last season's black odyssey in a couple of weeks. That should be really good.