Like many New York theatergoers, I suspect, I found it hard to efface the memory of Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons when I heard that Frank Langella would be tackling the role.
Don't get me wrong: I'd admired Langella's command of the stage all the way back to Dracula when I was in high school – or, over 10 years ago, his great comic turn as Noel Coward's alter ego Gary Essenden in Present Laughter.
But when I headed to one of the last previews before opening night a few weeks ago in the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of the Robert Bolt historical drama, I didn't know how he might measure up. Perhaps my uncertainty stemmed from those roles' generous, unapologetic slabs of ham, whereas More requires a martyr’s self-abnegation.
I needn't have worried. Langella allows us to see this hero of conscience with fresh eyes. From the moment he appeared onstage at the Roundabout's flagship venue, American Airlines Theater, he presented a character who, oddly enough, had something in common with his more flamboyant roles.
A Character Who Fills the Room…An Actor Who Fills the Stage
At his full 6-ft.-4-in. frame, Langella fills a room, making it easy to understand how the statesman and intellectual he plays has become accustomed to the best of everything—the best books, the best wines, the best house, the best family, the best society, and the best perquisites of power. Like the "wise men" of recent Washington vintage, he gets called on whenever a head of state desperately needs a calm, experienced counselor. (And, in truth, the only unconvincing note in this astute performance comes when his More enters the living room just after having performed daily vespers.)
But the way of the cross that England's most powerful statesman must undergo forces More to lose everything but what he grasps most stubbornly: the autonomy of his own soul.
At one point or another, that assertion of will drives to distraction everyone in his orbit: the wife, daughter, son-in-law, best friend, and Archbishop of Canterbury, all of whom try to convince him to go along with Henry VIII’s demand for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon.
But More will not be yield. An Atticus Finch of Renaissance England, this lawyer-hero might appear almost insufferably decent, but for this fact: his stand is so lonely that it exposes to danger not only himself, but also his family.
In a thousand natural ways, director Fred Zinnemann "opened up" the film (which I saw again, one week after the Roundabout production, for the fourth or fifth time, with my friends Brian and Wilhelmine, at Suffern, NY's wondrous Lafayette Theater).
For example, in the final courtroom scene, he began with More stepping through a narrow passageway into a wider frame—like an ancient Christian entering the Coliseum before being tossed to the lions—before concluding with a master synchronization of Scofield's magnificent voice and body movements. (I discussed this in a prior post.)
The 1966 movie became one of the most deserving Best Picture winners in Oscar history with its expert direction by Zinnemann, a sterling cast, and a screenplay by Bolt that often flashes with Shavian wit.
Reworking Familiar Material
But Zinnemann also, by necessity, reshaped and narrowed this play that depends heavily on words – not just those its playwright gives his protagonist, but the words that More is forced to weigh.
Hughes' stage production restores much of this material (notably, the seriocomic appearances of Spanish ambassador Eustace Chapuys) while accepting one of the film's major departures: the disappearance of the "Common Man" character who popped up periodically, a la Bertolt Brecht, to comment sardonically on events.
Fortunately, Hughes figures out stage counterparts for some of the notable scenes in the film. On screen, Henry’s vast entourage and More’s family realize the two friends’ growing estrangement on the divorce issue when the voice of the monarch (a scene-stealing turn by Robert Shaw) comes carrying all the way across the grand lawn of More’s estate and into the house.
On stage, the unequal power dynamic between the two men is suggested by the constantly shifting commands of Henry (played by Patrick Page, who looks like a younger version of Tim Curry) about when and how more should sit. As we watch, we become acutely aware what’s dawning on More: the royal is utterly unable to contain enthusiasm, ego or anger, and is all the more dangerous for this capriciousness.
In addition to Langella and Page, several other actors acquitted themselves with unusual skill:
* Zach Grenier brought a growling menace to More’s Machiavellian successor as Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell.
* Jeremy Strong adeptly handled Richard Rich, the kind of small man who rises to the top during political upheavals—as long as they don’t scruple about conscience. He demonstrated how painful—literally—Richard’s political education in Cromwell’s service could be during the act-ender in which he screamed as Cromwell turned his hand for a long period under a candle.
* Hannah Cabell, as Margaret More, the daughter who, centuries ahead of her time, made her father proud with her learning—and endured the anguish of watching him caught up in the viper’s nest of the Tudor court.
A Controversial Production
Reviewers have divided sharply on the need for the revival at all. The naysayers have several issues, the two most common being the lack of a dramatic arc (i.e., we know just what will happen) and the play’s exaggeration of More’s virtue. This hero acted in the name of an absolutist institution, the Roman Catholic Church, they say, and in a supreme irony this politician who hounded Protestants himself became a martyr. Bolt seems to be anticipating their objections right in the play, when he has the all-too-worldly Cardinal Wolsey sniping at More for the latter’s “moral squint.”
I’ll dispose of the “no dramatic arc” objection first. We know what happened to Julius Caesar and Abraham Lincoln, but that has never stopped countless actors from tackling these parts.
As for the second charge: 1) The critics are seeking the kind of impossible goody-two-shoes they blame Bolt for foisting on the world; 2) Protestants of the 16th century persecuted Catholics with a vigor that equaled Catholics’ harassment of themselves; and 3) In judging historical figures, one must assess not just whether they measured up to the standards of our time but if an alternative ethical standard existed in their own to which they could look. As Jason Kuznicki on the "Positive Liberty" blog has convincingly argued, “Until the Enlightenment, wherever an official tolerance existed, it was almost always a particular and revocable license to practice one specific minority religion, and to do so only under highly restrictive conditions.” Unlike late 18th-century America, say, where Thomas Jefferson could have looked to a significant abolitionist strain if he wanted to free his slaves, no tradition of tolerance existed in early 16th century England or the continent that might make him question his pursuit of heretics.
The concern for the rule of law that Bolt’s More enunciated in A Man for All Seasons was something he practiced in his own life. As Peter Ackroyd relates in The Life of Thomas More, the author of Utopia was far more careful, objective and worldly-wise in reviewing cases, for instance, than his predecessor as Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey.
In an excellent post-show discussion, Anne Prescott, a Renaissance literature professor at Columbia University, pointed out the ways that the show diverged from history. Some were amusing (the real-life More preferred beer to wine and grew a beard in the Tower of London), some involved poetic license (four children were reduced to one—More's scholarly daughter Margaret), and some took substantial liberties with characters (in real life, the martyr referred to Protestants with excremental imagery).
For all of that, she noted, Bolt’s play, unlike many others, got the essentials of his life right. I couldn’t agree more. Listen to the trial scene in either the play or move, then compare it to the actual transcript of the proceedings. Tell me if he doesn’t adhere to it with an extraordinary level of fidelity.
The audience seems far more attuned to many reviewers to the value of Bolt’s message. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, the critic-blogger Terry Teachout pointed out the continuing relevance and universal of More’s great response when his son-in-law William Roper says he’d “cut a great road through the law” to eliminate one of Henry’s spies: “"And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you -- where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"
“Bolt didn't write ‘A Man for All Seasons’ in order to persuade those who saw it to go out and vote Labour,” Teachout observes. “His purpose was to make viewers of all political persuasions reflect on the dangerous consequences of using extralegal means to pursue desirable short-term ends. The result is a deeply political play that is neither liberal nor conservative -- and one that succeeds as a work of art.”
Or, as I overheard a middle-aged female moviegoer say to her friend the day I saw the film at the Lafayette: “I wish our leaders in Washington could see this.” While not the kind of incubator for totalitarianism that Henry’s England was (Prescott noted that one of the king’s contemporaries pointed out that he possessed the dangerous desire to “make windows into men’s souls”), contemporary Washington is filled with opportunists of all political stripes—a metropolis of Richard Riches rather than Thomas Mores.
Don't get me wrong: I'd admired Langella's command of the stage all the way back to Dracula when I was in high school – or, over 10 years ago, his great comic turn as Noel Coward's alter ego Gary Essenden in Present Laughter.
But when I headed to one of the last previews before opening night a few weeks ago in the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of the Robert Bolt historical drama, I didn't know how he might measure up. Perhaps my uncertainty stemmed from those roles' generous, unapologetic slabs of ham, whereas More requires a martyr’s self-abnegation.
I needn't have worried. Langella allows us to see this hero of conscience with fresh eyes. From the moment he appeared onstage at the Roundabout's flagship venue, American Airlines Theater, he presented a character who, oddly enough, had something in common with his more flamboyant roles.
A Character Who Fills the Room…An Actor Who Fills the Stage
At his full 6-ft.-4-in. frame, Langella fills a room, making it easy to understand how the statesman and intellectual he plays has become accustomed to the best of everything—the best books, the best wines, the best house, the best family, the best society, and the best perquisites of power. Like the "wise men" of recent Washington vintage, he gets called on whenever a head of state desperately needs a calm, experienced counselor. (And, in truth, the only unconvincing note in this astute performance comes when his More enters the living room just after having performed daily vespers.)
But the way of the cross that England's most powerful statesman must undergo forces More to lose everything but what he grasps most stubbornly: the autonomy of his own soul.
At one point or another, that assertion of will drives to distraction everyone in his orbit: the wife, daughter, son-in-law, best friend, and Archbishop of Canterbury, all of whom try to convince him to go along with Henry VIII’s demand for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon.
But More will not be yield. An Atticus Finch of Renaissance England, this lawyer-hero might appear almost insufferably decent, but for this fact: his stand is so lonely that it exposes to danger not only himself, but also his family.
In a thousand natural ways, director Fred Zinnemann "opened up" the film (which I saw again, one week after the Roundabout production, for the fourth or fifth time, with my friends Brian and Wilhelmine, at Suffern, NY's wondrous Lafayette Theater).
For example, in the final courtroom scene, he began with More stepping through a narrow passageway into a wider frame—like an ancient Christian entering the Coliseum before being tossed to the lions—before concluding with a master synchronization of Scofield's magnificent voice and body movements. (I discussed this in a prior post.)
The 1966 movie became one of the most deserving Best Picture winners in Oscar history with its expert direction by Zinnemann, a sterling cast, and a screenplay by Bolt that often flashes with Shavian wit.
Reworking Familiar Material
But Zinnemann also, by necessity, reshaped and narrowed this play that depends heavily on words – not just those its playwright gives his protagonist, but the words that More is forced to weigh.
Hughes' stage production restores much of this material (notably, the seriocomic appearances of Spanish ambassador Eustace Chapuys) while accepting one of the film's major departures: the disappearance of the "Common Man" character who popped up periodically, a la Bertolt Brecht, to comment sardonically on events.
Fortunately, Hughes figures out stage counterparts for some of the notable scenes in the film. On screen, Henry’s vast entourage and More’s family realize the two friends’ growing estrangement on the divorce issue when the voice of the monarch (a scene-stealing turn by Robert Shaw) comes carrying all the way across the grand lawn of More’s estate and into the house.
On stage, the unequal power dynamic between the two men is suggested by the constantly shifting commands of Henry (played by Patrick Page, who looks like a younger version of Tim Curry) about when and how more should sit. As we watch, we become acutely aware what’s dawning on More: the royal is utterly unable to contain enthusiasm, ego or anger, and is all the more dangerous for this capriciousness.
In addition to Langella and Page, several other actors acquitted themselves with unusual skill:
* Zach Grenier brought a growling menace to More’s Machiavellian successor as Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell.
* Jeremy Strong adeptly handled Richard Rich, the kind of small man who rises to the top during political upheavals—as long as they don’t scruple about conscience. He demonstrated how painful—literally—Richard’s political education in Cromwell’s service could be during the act-ender in which he screamed as Cromwell turned his hand for a long period under a candle.
* Hannah Cabell, as Margaret More, the daughter who, centuries ahead of her time, made her father proud with her learning—and endured the anguish of watching him caught up in the viper’s nest of the Tudor court.
A Controversial Production
Reviewers have divided sharply on the need for the revival at all. The naysayers have several issues, the two most common being the lack of a dramatic arc (i.e., we know just what will happen) and the play’s exaggeration of More’s virtue. This hero acted in the name of an absolutist institution, the Roman Catholic Church, they say, and in a supreme irony this politician who hounded Protestants himself became a martyr. Bolt seems to be anticipating their objections right in the play, when he has the all-too-worldly Cardinal Wolsey sniping at More for the latter’s “moral squint.”
I’ll dispose of the “no dramatic arc” objection first. We know what happened to Julius Caesar and Abraham Lincoln, but that has never stopped countless actors from tackling these parts.
As for the second charge: 1) The critics are seeking the kind of impossible goody-two-shoes they blame Bolt for foisting on the world; 2) Protestants of the 16th century persecuted Catholics with a vigor that equaled Catholics’ harassment of themselves; and 3) In judging historical figures, one must assess not just whether they measured up to the standards of our time but if an alternative ethical standard existed in their own to which they could look. As Jason Kuznicki on the "Positive Liberty" blog has convincingly argued, “Until the Enlightenment, wherever an official tolerance existed, it was almost always a particular and revocable license to practice one specific minority religion, and to do so only under highly restrictive conditions.” Unlike late 18th-century America, say, where Thomas Jefferson could have looked to a significant abolitionist strain if he wanted to free his slaves, no tradition of tolerance existed in early 16th century England or the continent that might make him question his pursuit of heretics.
The concern for the rule of law that Bolt’s More enunciated in A Man for All Seasons was something he practiced in his own life. As Peter Ackroyd relates in The Life of Thomas More, the author of Utopia was far more careful, objective and worldly-wise in reviewing cases, for instance, than his predecessor as Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey.
In an excellent post-show discussion, Anne Prescott, a Renaissance literature professor at Columbia University, pointed out the ways that the show diverged from history. Some were amusing (the real-life More preferred beer to wine and grew a beard in the Tower of London), some involved poetic license (four children were reduced to one—More's scholarly daughter Margaret), and some took substantial liberties with characters (in real life, the martyr referred to Protestants with excremental imagery).
For all of that, she noted, Bolt’s play, unlike many others, got the essentials of his life right. I couldn’t agree more. Listen to the trial scene in either the play or move, then compare it to the actual transcript of the proceedings. Tell me if he doesn’t adhere to it with an extraordinary level of fidelity.
The audience seems far more attuned to many reviewers to the value of Bolt’s message. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, the critic-blogger Terry Teachout pointed out the continuing relevance and universal of More’s great response when his son-in-law William Roper says he’d “cut a great road through the law” to eliminate one of Henry’s spies: “"And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you -- where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"
“Bolt didn't write ‘A Man for All Seasons’ in order to persuade those who saw it to go out and vote Labour,” Teachout observes. “His purpose was to make viewers of all political persuasions reflect on the dangerous consequences of using extralegal means to pursue desirable short-term ends. The result is a deeply political play that is neither liberal nor conservative -- and one that succeeds as a work of art.”
Or, as I overheard a middle-aged female moviegoer say to her friend the day I saw the film at the Lafayette: “I wish our leaders in Washington could see this.” While not the kind of incubator for totalitarianism that Henry’s England was (Prescott noted that one of the king’s contemporaries pointed out that he possessed the dangerous desire to “make windows into men’s souls”), contemporary Washington is filled with opportunists of all political stripes—a metropolis of Richard Riches rather than Thomas Mores.
