Henry VI.

This period of time was contentious, it is probably the reason that it has been written about quite a lot. It brings great debate even today amongst Americans. Did congress have the right to investigate? Did Americans want communists in our mist, especially in Hollywood, the place where movies are made, the place that controls a lot of the ways that Americans think? This play drew a lot of that out in the hour forty five minutes." Henry VI" at the Public Theater part 1 and part 2 gives Nicholas Nickleby a run for it's money as far as running time is concerned. Clocking in at just over 5:15 running time, this "Henry VI" is for the Shakespearean Theater Phoebe.

Under the adaptation as well as the direction by Stephen Brown-Fried, this classic Shakespeare play never gets ant traction as far as depth and resonance. What really hurts this play, and there are many things that do is: it was produced in conjunction with the National Asian American Theatre Company. The Public did well with it's scenic design (dots); it's costumes (three As Four) and lighting (Mextly Couzin) and sound by (Kate Marvin). The problem is with the casting and direction. Actors enter from exit doors, the fight scenes are never believable and it becomes more like a high school production than a Public Theater production. The actors have a difficult time pronouncing the words in The Bards' classic. Unlike the many inter racial productions I have seen over the many years, this one doesn't even come close to believability. We never get into the action, the life of Henry, nor the people who surround his life. Even the people who try to bring him down are washed out in this production.

This production at The Public takes the Anglo Saxon identity away from the audience and instead delivers a production that is not recognizable to the Shakespeare lover. Men's parts are played by woman adding to the confusion of the plot. We have to really breakdown who is who in this marathon of a play, This too adds to our frustration as many audience members fell asleep during both acts in both parts.

While The Public has enjoyed many good productions this year, "Henry VI" is not one of them! The play, the direction, the staging was not well thought out. It seemed like it was actually thrown together; it is very slipshod and unprofessional.

If you are going to put on good Bard productions, you need people who can articulate the words clearly. Why this production lost it's audience is because the acting was lousy.

In the theater, if you are not going to at least try to emulate the genre of the writer, then you will get lost in the production; audiences too will be frustrated and the production will languish.

It's not bad enough that we have posers like Matt Ross in the business, when we Woke It Up, it has a tendency to be bad.

I have seen a lot of different productions over the years by several producers in Shakespeare writings. It is not easy to keep the audiences attentive. Just a few years ago I saw a terrible "Macbeth" with Daniel Craig. The director tried to make it too trendy, too edgy and it fell flat. It is a delicate balance when doing The Bard. The first and foremost is to keep the audience interested in the production on stage.

The public in this "Henry" never gets going in the right direction. It was amazing just how bad it was with a horrible cast and horrible direction. I am not sure why the public teamed up with Asian American to do this. The actors should have been mic'd up. It was very difficult to hear them speak on stage. What too was difficult was their accents into Shakespeare made the play even that much worse.

Shakespeare needs to be in English. Even though these orientals speak English, it is not in the English that Shakespeare is spoken.

Only Ken Greenblatt produced worse than this with "Teaneck Tarzan", "Moose Murders" and "Legs Diamond".

No Bull With Raging Robert, RMNY, Broadway Bob Massimi, Broadway, The Public Theater, Hollywood, Halston, Armani, Hermes, Tony Awards, Oscars, John Lithgow, Judy Dench.