Theater Review - Premeditated martyr
Robert Bolt’s play A Man for All Seasons, currently showing at the Shakespeare Tavern, earns its title. Bolt dramatizes Henry VIII’s persecution of England’s Chancellor Sir Thomas More (Jeff Watkins), who refused to endorse the king’s divorce, remarriage and break with the Catholic Church. The 40-year-old play portrays More as the kind of beacon of personal and political integrity that seldom appears in public affairs in any era (although Richard Clarke’s recent apology for failing to prevent 9/11 comes close).
Seasons includes moments of levity, but the Shakespeare Tavern treats the drama almost frivolously, especially in its first act. The Tavern typically fosters a chummy performing style with plenty of eye contact and asides to the audience, but while that fits a broad comedy, it proves thoroughly inappropriate here.
Granted, Marc McPherson’s earthy humor suits the Common Man, who addresses the audience and stands for England’s body politic by playing all the servants and “ignoble” roles. But while Bolt writes the Spanish ambassador as a nimble wit who offers aid to More, Drew Reeves plays the role like a screwball-comedy Spaniard with a Princess Bride accent.
When the actors can tear their gazes away from the spectators and actually look at each other, and when director Tony Brown focuses more closely on the relationships between the characters, Seasons reveals its dramatic force. In the second act, Watkins brings tenderness and anguish to his scenes with Pat Bell and Jennifer Akin as More’s wife and daughter, respectively. Watkins lacks the gravitas of a thinker renowned as “the English Socrates,” though, and seems more akin to a meek small-town lawyer in over his head.
As the king’s conniving hatchet man Thomas Cromwell (not to be confused with Oliver Cromwell), Maurice Ralston’s sinister confidence gives the drama a much-needed anchor. The Tavern’s Seasons works best in the interrogation scenes, as More’s airtight logic and irreproachable conduct forces Cromwell to go to further extremes.
The Shakespeare Tavern doesn’t do justice to A Man for All Seasons and gives superficial readings to its rich cast of historic figures. But it still emerges as an insightful case study in the politics of personal destruction, and makes particularly relevant viewing during an election year.
A Man for All Seasons plays through May 9 at the New American Shakespeare Tavern, 499 Peachtree St. Thurs.-Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 6:30 p.m. $10-$24.50. 404-874-5299. www.shakespearetavern.com.