“... Those that come to see
Only a show or two and so agree
The play may pass. If they be still and willing
I’ll undertake may see away their shilling
Richly in two short hours.”
These words, addressed to the audience in the prologue, make it quite clear that a considerable portion of the play was considered by the author to be superfluous to the dramatic action—and so it is. Acted without any waits whatsoever, Henry VIII., as it is written, would take at least three hours and a half in the playing. Although we are not able to compass the performance within the prescribed “two short hours,” for we show a greater respect for the preservation of the text than did Shakespeare himself, an attempt will be made to confine the absolute spoken words as nearly as possible within the time prescribed in the prologue.
In the dramatic presentation of the play, there are many passages of intensely moving interest, the action and characters are drawn with a remarkable fidelity to the actualities. As has been suggested, however, the play depends more largely than do most of Shakespeare’s works on those outward displays which an attempt will be made to realize on the stage.
Shakespeare as Stage Manager
That Shakespeare, as a stage-manager, availed himself as far as possible of these adjuncts is only too evident from the fact that it was the firing off the cannon which caused a conflagration and the consequent burning down of the Globe Theatre. The destruction of the manuscripts of Shakespeare’s plays was probably due to this calamity. The incident shows a lamentable love of stage-mounting for which some of the critics of the time no doubt took the poet severely to task. In connection with the love of pageantry which then prevailed, it is well known that Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were wont to arrange the Masques which were so much in vogue in their time.
The Fire
The Globe Theatre was burnt on June 29th, 1613. Thomas Lorkins, in a letter to Sir Thomas Puckering on June 30th, says: “No longer since than yesterday, while Bourbidge his companie were acting at ye Globe the play of Henry 8, and there shooting of certayne chambers in way of triumph; the fire catch and fastened upon the thatch of ye house and there burned so furiously as it consumed ye whole house all in lesse than two hours, the people having enough to doe to save themselves.”
Other Productions of the Play
There are records of many other productions of Henry VIII. existing. In 1663 it was produced at Lincoln’s Inn Fields as a pageant play. The redoubtable Mr. Pepys visited this production, without appearing to have enjoyed the play. In contrast to him, old Dr. Johnson said that whenever Mrs. Siddons played the part of Katharine, he would “hobble to the theatre to see her.”
In 1707, Henry VIII. was produced at the Haymarket, with an exceptionally strong cast; in 1722 it was done at Drury Lane, in which production Booth played Henry VIII.