
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 15, 1991                   TAG: 9103150800
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A/11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: PAXTON DAVIS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THUMBS DOWN ON UPDATES OF THE BARD

THE PLAYS of William Shakespeare have had to go in many guises. Though played more or less in the finery of their time when first mounted, they subsequently have been seen in costumes of other times - often times inappropriate to their historical subjects - and under a variety of eccentric interpretations.

The plays themselves survive, as good stuff generally survives the excesses of its handlers. But the Bard must, more than once, have turned in his grave.

"Hamlet" was often done in Victorian costume, and in this century has often been done not only as Victorian melodrama but in modern dress.Odd casting has been common, not the least example of which is Mel Gibson's portrayal of Hamlet in the current Franco Zefferelli movie production. It is a travesty that glitters with "production values" and bizarre notions of casting, including that of Glenn Close as Gertrude, Hamlet's, i.e. Gibson's, mother. The whole loathsome movie might better be entitled "Mad Max and His Fatal Attraction."

I have seen fewer Shakespeare productions more roundly lambasted, however, than JoAnne Akalaitis' production of "Henry IV, Parts I and II," in Joseph Papp's marathon New York Shakespeare Festival. Though I have not seen her "Henry IV," the reviews do not encourage me to try. I am bored with modern-dress Shakespeare anyway, and if Mimi Kramer of The New Yorker is correct, which she usually is, this is an especially irritating piece of updating.

"Henry IV," in both its sequential parts, is pre-eminently a Medieval pair of plays. It is an attempt by Shakespeare to catch the rivalries of the difficult reign of Henry IV against the background of insecure national states and thrones, then play the large rivalries against the intimate tale of the king's dissatisfaction with his son and heir, Prince Hal, who, in the course of the two dramas, finally throws off his dissolute youth and assumes royal dignity and responsibility. The complexity of the Medieval fabric is central to its effect.

The current New York version, assuming the critics' descriptions are accurate, is determinedly "post-modern" and avant-garde. It is full of "false artiness" and "intellectual dishonesty," as Mimi Kramer puts it, as well as of bad casting, bad acting and bad staging.

Shakespeare's iambic pentameter is ignored, the historical weight of the story is ignored, and costuming is helter-skelter, embracing a variety of eras without apparent purpose or thought.

Those are not accusations that make me want to see the New York show, but by now I have seen so many versions of "Henry IV" that I do not require another. Among the more brilliant efforts, Orson Welles' famous film "Chimes at Midnight" remains supreme - his attempt, against a number of financial odds, to combine Parts I and II into an effective single story, with his own Falstaff at the forefront.

When you have lived as long as I have, however, you come to think you've seen and heard everything, including an American president who believes trees are a major cause of air pollution. I have seen more eccentric "Hamlets" than I like to remember, at least two too many "Romeo and Juliets" and "Macbeth" mounted as Japanese drama.

But for a real ear-opener I cannot imagine any Shakespeare more startling than a production I have, on tape, of a CBS-Radio production of "Henry IV" broadcast "from Hollywood" sometime in the 1930s. Radio drama was at its zenith then, and the use of movie stars in all sorts of roles was common. But this took the cake.

Walter Huston as Henry IV himself was fine, and Brian Aherne was acceptable as Prince Hal. Walter Connolly, a noted actor of the time, was too mild as Falstaff, but one could remember his portliness and forgive the rest. Dame May Whitty seemed a bit ancient to play Mistress Quickly. But the real touch came when Hotspur came on.

Hotspur is the son Henry IV wishes he had, chivalrous and noble (and, as it turns out, doomed). He is everything scapegrace Hal is not, and Henry IV despairs at the contrast. But Hotspur is also a Percy, and thus a rival, ultimately an enemy, and his death is the turning point.

I knew all of that but not who was playing Hotspur - not, that is, until I heard that voice, modern, urban, harsh, about as typical of the Age of Chivalry as a Big Mac. But there was no mistaking it:

Hotspur was . . . Humphrey Bogart.

by CNB