A Stratford Production: Henry VIII

Summary

This year a single production of a Shakespeare play has been selected by our reviewer for an extended description and critical analysis. It is hoped that this may prove of interest to readers who did not have the opportunity of seeing the performance itself, and that it may have some permanent value as an historical record.

I have selected the Stratford production of Henry VIII for a 'descriptive analysis' for various reasons, chief among them being the producer's evident desire to remain faithful to the author's intentions, his treatment of the text, and his utilization of a kind of stage which permitted him to secure effects impossible in an ordinary picture-frame set.

When the audience entered the theatre, instead of seeing a curtain, they had before their eyes a lighted permanent set which remained unchanged and unhidden until the end (see Plate VIII A). An excellent compromise between a platform and a picture-frame stage, it suggests a basic design which might well provide a happy and practicable solution to the problem of securing the effect of the Elizabethan stage within our modern theatres. Miss Tanya Moiseiwitsch is to be congratulated on the pleasing and dignified appearance as well as on the admirably functional qualities of this set, with its varied levels, its ample forestage, fifteen feet deep, and its wellthought- out modifications and rearrangements of the gallery and the inner-stage.