[In the following review of Howard Jensen's production of King John at the 2001 Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Barrow praises the set design, costuming, and excellent individual performances, as well as its concentration on the tragic potential of John.]

On entering the Octagon to see King John, one is confronted by a series of arches forming a rampart set at an acute angle to the stage; each arch seems slightly larger than the next. One wishes imaginatively to make these arches harmonically the same size, but one is frustrated by the creation of this visible symbol of the play by its Scenic Designer, Emily Beck. This skewed design, probably a collaboration with Director Howard Jensen, serves as a representative of the twisted behavior one so often sees in this Shakespearean play. While critics such as James L. Calderwood in “Commodity and Honor in King John”¹ and William H. Matchett in “Richard's Divided Heritage in King John”² see the Bastard as a potential king in contrast to the ineffectual, morally corrupt John, the ASF production goes another way. Although it does not present the Bastard negatively as Richard A. Levin in “King John's Bastard”³ does, where he argues that the Bastard follows rather than criticizes commodity, or self-interest, the production of the play focuses on King John, especially his plot against the life, and later the eyes of Arthur, his young nephew and rival to the English throne.

Casting, either by the casting director, Alan Filderman or the director Howard Jensen, shapes the focus of the audience's attention. Ray Chambers, probably the most gifted for serious dramatic acting of the younger actors of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, plays King John, while John Preston, a gifted comic actor, plays the Bastard. Chambers is tall, good looking, with an arresting face; he could easily play Hamlet, while Preston is not quite so tall, heavier, with a face ready to break into a grin or smile. Even though King John appears only relatively strong in the play before the city Angiers and accepts correction from his mother Elinor, the humiliation of reversing himself regarding the supremacy of Rome before Cardinal Pandulph, and the weakness of having the Bastard act as king in John's name, Chambers holds our interest, and the weakness that we see in his King John seem only checks to a powerful, ruthless self-interest. Even Jensen and his “Director's Note”⁴ sees Shakespeare's King John as “more complex … the play action presents us with a dark version of political realities.” The moral center of the production becomes not simply John's quest to maintain his crown but his dramatized plot to have Arthur killed by Hubert and later to shift the moral blame upon Hubert as we see in IV:ii:203-248. King John sees only his need to keep the crown; the needs of his country disappear in his pursuit of commodity. Even at his death, little awareness of others or his country graces his poisoned last lines. Chambers, with his own powerful presence, keeps the audience rooted in his character's fault-ridden collapse. John's plot to kill Arthur in this production almost has the feeling of a tragic error of choice or a dilemma, although neither the director nor Chambers seem to push this effect too far.

While Jensen seems aware of critical attraction to the Bastard as opposed to John, he sees the Bastard's role functionally⁵ as a “strikingly vivid fictional character based remotely on various historical figures, and, like Falstaff, Jensen believes the Bastard exists partly to perform acts and to provide views that help to amplify the action into a coherent and complex work of art.” Preston certainly handles this role as commentator well, and he also shows a correcting gravity and responsibility to the office of the king that provide a contrasting mirror to King John's behavior, especially after King John's plot on Arthur's life. Preston is so good in his role as commentator—in his jibes and asides before and after the commodity speech of II:i:561-59—that he directs the audience in what seems the central effect of this production, the examination of political rhetoric. Like the Bastard, perhaps even trained to think like him, the audience begins to weigh the speeches of Arthur's friends, the selflessness that masks advantage of Philip and Lewis, the accusatory speeches of Elinor and Constance covered by maternal love, the self-righteousness that hides the traitorous intrigue of Salisbury and Pembroke, as well as Pandulph's manipulative political maneuvering, which is barely cloaked by religion. Even innocents such as Arthur and Blanche are partially caught by commodity in their decision making. The production frequently seems like a television news analysis of major political leaders scrutinized by the Bastard and his audience.

What is described by Susan Willis, the ASF Dramaturg, as late nineteenth century military costumes appear more like early World War I with its own confusing Balkan problems. Even the women are in uniform here. Such costuming aids the audience in assessing the true aims of speakers and furthers the production's apparent aim of evaluating political rhetoric. The various military encounters in the play, which never have determining results, are sparely presented in the stylized manner of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. What is important here is that the physical action not seem significant enough to deflect attention from the rhetorical analysis of the virtuous posturings of speaker's language attempting to hide self-interest. The deaths in battle, therefore, seem meaningless, brutal, unfair.

Not just Ray Chambers and John Preston's efforts deserve praise in this production; the entire cast is good, especially considering the excessive length of the speeches in King John, which are better suited to late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century performance and taste than that of the modern stage. Even Greta Lambert, the most talented actress of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, is hard pressed to keep audience interest in her major speeches following France's betrayal of Arthur in the beginning of Act III. Deserving of special praise for their performances are Rodney Clark as Salisbury and Brian Kurlander as Pembroke, Paul Hebron as Philip, Aaron Harpold as Lewis, and Rick Hamilton as Cardinal Pandulph. Each is able to show the pose and the interior reality of each character, adding to the triumph of this production.

Notes

1. James L. Calderwood, “Commodity and Honour in King John,” Shakespeare: The Histories, ed. Eugene M. Waith (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965), p. 85-101.

2. William H. Matchett, “Richard's Divided Heritage in King John,” Essays in Shakespearean Criticism, ed. James L. Calderwood and Harold E. Toliver (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1970), p. 152-170.

3. Richard A. Levin, “King John's Bastard,” The Upstart Crow: A Shakespeare Journal, 3 (1980), 29-41.

4. Howard Jensen, “Director's Note,” 2001 Alabama Shakespeare Festival program, p. 8.

5. Jensen, p. 8.