There probably isn't a scholar or critic in the world who would rate Henry VIII as one of Shakespeare's great history plays. It possesses no grandly iconic heroes or villains of diabolic ambitions. It contains no patches of soaring verse and commemorates no single splendid event that forever changed the course of the British monarchy. It is essentially a patched-together propaganda piece.

The general belief today is that Shakespeare himself wrote less than half the text, and that John Fletcher and others were responsible for the rest. Part pageant, part history, the play seems to have been composed quickly and to order, possibly to celebrate the marriage of James I's daughter in 1613.

Yet as presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company during its recent 18-day residency at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Henry VIII is suddenly revealed to be a vivid and compelling theatrical artifact. Here is an emotionally charged, early-17th-century docudrama, gorgeously designed and costumed, acted cleanly and without affectation, as engaging to the intellect for the history it omits as for the history it embraces.

This production is the kind of discovery that is expected of the giant, financially besieged R.S.C., which maintains three theaters in Stratford-on-Avon and two at the Barbican Center in London, tours regularly in Britain and abroad and has 29 productions in its current repertory. Certainly, Henry VIII is the most fully realized of the three Shakespeare productions in the company's five-play touring repertory, which, following its Brooklyn engagement, is now at the Kennedy Center in Washington through July 5.

Though this tour was designed to show off the R.S.C. to advantage (and could, if successful, become a recurring event), it also demonstrates why London press support for the company has eroded. Some English critics argue that the R.S.C. isn't adventurous in either its choice of plays or approach to the productions it chooses to stage. They also worry that many of its productions simply aren't good enough. …

Compared to Hamlet and Cymbeline, Gregory Doran's production of Henry VIII is a vigorous, clear-eyed, unhackneyed delight. Its focus: the plight of Katharine of Aragon, Henry's first wife, whom he's in the process of dumping in favor of Anne Bullen (Boleyn), soon to be the mother of Elizabeth.

That such a play, written so soon after Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603, could present a strong, sympathetic portrayal of Katharine seems odd, especially since the play ends on the triumphant note of Elizabeth's birth and christening. Poor, soon to be headless, Anne figures hardly at all in the drama, which also deals with the fall from favor of Cardinal Wolsey.

Henry VIII or All Is True, as it was known to contemporary audiences, is a treasure trove of what today look like contradictory political impulses.

The familiar Holbein portrait of Henry is recalled early in the production, but the role, and Paul Jesson's measured performance of it, are otherwise free of cliches and, for that matter, all idiosyncratic particulars. Instead of leaving a vacuum at the center of the play, this creates a kind of mystery that prompts not boredom but speculation. Like the god he was when he ruled, Henry appears to be accessible while remaining unknowable.

Jane Lapotaire is very fine as the abandoned wife who tenaciously fights Henry all the way to her eventual house arrest in a second-class castle. It's a tough, proud, unsentimental performance by the actress who, four years ago, starred in the R.S.C.'s memorable revival of “Ghosts.” If you have the chance, note also Ian Hogg's excellent portrayal of Wolsey, the worldly prince of the church who was both perpetrator and victim.

Henry VIII is a most entertaining minor drama about which we know even less than we do about Shakespeare. One fact is documented: it can be incendiary. In the course of a performance of the play on June 29, 1613, the Globe Theater burned to the ground, the thatched roof apparently ignited by the debris from a fiery special effect. …