Anne Boleyn (play)
Encyclopedia
Anne Boleyn is a 2010 play on the life of Anne Boleyn
by the English author Howard Brenton
, which premiered at the Shakespeare's Globe
from 24 July to 21 August 2010 in a production directed by John Dove and with the title role played by Miranda Raison
(also playing Boleyn in Shakespeare's Henry VIII in the same season). It premiered alongside the Globe's first season of Shakespeare's history plays, made up of Henry VIII
, Henry IV Part 1 and Henry IV Part 2. The same production was revived in 2011 as part of the 400th anniversary celebrations of the King James Version, with most of the same cast.
and The Obedience of a Christian Man
. He and his lover George Villiers go to search the palace for Anne's ghost. The action shifts to Anne Boleyn at the English court, where Henry VIII meets her, falls in love with her and acquiesces to her demands to postpone their first sex until she can be his wife. Henry begins the divorce proceedings against Catherine of Aragon
, with both Cardinal Wolsey and Wolsey's advisor manoeuvring for position.
Anne goes secretly to meet with William Tyndale and he gives her a copy of the forbidden text The Obedience of a Christian Man. She entrusts this to her ladies in waiting, but two of Wolsey's servants seize it from the ladies and take it to Wolsey, who is delighted to use it to discredit Anne with the king. Anne goes to Cromwell for advice and finds that he, like her, is a secret Protestant. Anne then takes Cromwell's advice and pre-empts Wolsey's action - in so doing she not only gets the book back but brings about Wolsey's fall. She also partially convinces Henry to accept the book's argument that the head of the church in England is not the pope but the king himself. The action then moves forward to winter 1532 in Calais, at a conference with Francis I of France
, where Anne and Henry make love for the first time, with the divorce from Catherine and their marriage imminent.
The action returns to James's reign, where he attempts to calm the Reformation Anne's actions and Henry's divorce had unleashed, by holding the Hampton Court Conference
between the Puritan
and Anglican wings of the Church of England
. The Puritan faction is led by John Reynolds and the Anglican one by Lancelot Andrews, both of them moderates. However, extremists on both sides such as Henry Barrow cause the debate to drag on for over five hours, only ending when James draws on his experience of presbyterianism
in the Church of Scotland
and angrily quashes any thoughts of establishing it in the English church as a replacement for episcopacy, seeing presbyterianism as threatening the king's position as Supreme Head of the Church of England and supreme secular ruler by divine right
. He then meets with Reynolds and Andrews privately for further discussions, which end in a compromise agreement to produce an Authorised Version of the Bible with an Anglican slant but based on the Puritan-favoured Tyndale translation.
The action shifts back to Anne and the birth of the future Elizabeth I of England
. She then goes to Tyndale with an offer from Cromwell of a place on the Privy Council
for the better advancement of the Protestant cause, but he refuses it and tells her that he opposes Henry's divorce and does not recognise her as Henry's true wife. Some time later Anne miscarries a male child, which bruises but does not destroy her relationship with Henry, still hopeful for a son. However, Henry then takes Anne's lady in waiting Jane Seymour as a mistress and his relationship with Anne is finally wrecked when she is imprisoned by Cromwell. Anne is then kept from communicating with Henry in the lead-up to her execution, in a pre-emptive strike by Cromwell to avoid her telling Henry of Cromwell's embezzlement of funds from dissolved monasteries
. The play then ends in 1603, where Anne's ghost talks with James about the Protestant Reformation she unleashed and then addresses the audience before departing.
Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...
by the English author Howard Brenton
Howard Brenton
-Early years:Brenton was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, son of Methodist minister Donald Henry Brenton and his wife Rose Lilian . He was educated at Chichester High School For Boys and read English Literature at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. In 1964 he was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal...
, which premiered at the Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse in the London Borough of Southwark, located on the south bank of the River Thames, but destroyed by fire in 1613, rebuilt 1614 then demolished in 1644. The modern reconstruction is an academic best guess, based...
from 24 July to 21 August 2010 in a production directed by John Dove and with the title role played by Miranda Raison
Miranda Raison
-Early life:Born in Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, her father Nick Raison is a jazz pianist and artist, while her mother Caroline read the news for Anglia Television. She has two brothers and two sisters: Ed , Rosie, Sam and May. Her parents divorced when she was six years old, and her father remarried...
(also playing Boleyn in Shakespeare's Henry VIII in the same season). It premiered alongside the Globe's first season of Shakespeare's history plays, made up of Henry VIII
Henry VIII (play)
The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight is a history play by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, based on the life of Henry VIII of England. An alternative title, All is True, is recorded in contemporary documents, the title Henry VIII not appearing until the play's publication...
, Henry IV Part 1 and Henry IV Part 2. The same production was revived in 2011 as part of the 400th anniversary celebrations of the King James Version, with most of the same cast.
Plot
The ghost of Anne Boleyn arrives, carrying a blood-stained bag containing her severed head and a copy of Tyndale's Bible, and addresses the audience. The action moves to 1603, where James I arrives in London for his English coronation and finds a chest containing Anne Boleyn's coronation dress. Searching the chest's secret compartments, he finds Anne's copies of the Tyndale BibleTyndale Bible
The Tyndale Bible generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale. Tyndale’s Bible is credited with being the first English translation to work directly from Hebrew and Greek texts. Furthermore it was the first English biblical translation that was mass produced as a result...
and The Obedience of a Christian Man
The Obedience of a Christian Man
The Obedience of a Christen man, and how Christen rulers ought to govern, wherein also thou shalt find eyes to perceive the crafty convience of all iugglers. is a 1528 book by the English Protestant author William Tyndale. Its title is now commonly modernised in its spelling and abbreviated to The...
. He and his lover George Villiers go to search the palace for Anne's ghost. The action shifts to Anne Boleyn at the English court, where Henry VIII meets her, falls in love with her and acquiesces to her demands to postpone their first sex until she can be his wife. Henry begins the divorce proceedings against Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...
, with both Cardinal Wolsey and Wolsey's advisor manoeuvring for position.
Anne goes secretly to meet with William Tyndale and he gives her a copy of the forbidden text The Obedience of a Christian Man. She entrusts this to her ladies in waiting, but two of Wolsey's servants seize it from the ladies and take it to Wolsey, who is delighted to use it to discredit Anne with the king. Anne goes to Cromwell for advice and finds that he, like her, is a secret Protestant. Anne then takes Cromwell's advice and pre-empts Wolsey's action - in so doing she not only gets the book back but brings about Wolsey's fall. She also partially convinces Henry to accept the book's argument that the head of the church in England is not the pope but the king himself. The action then moves forward to winter 1532 in Calais, at a conference with Francis I of France
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
, where Anne and Henry make love for the first time, with the divorce from Catherine and their marriage imminent.
The action returns to James's reign, where he attempts to calm the Reformation Anne's actions and Henry's divorce had unleashed, by holding the Hampton Court Conference
Hampton Court Conference
The Hampton Court Conference was a meeting in January 1604, convened at Hampton Court Palace, for discussion between King James I of England and representatives of the Church of England, including leading English Puritans.-Attendance:...
between the Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
and Anglican wings of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
. The Puritan faction is led by John Reynolds and the Anglican one by Lancelot Andrews, both of them moderates. However, extremists on both sides such as Henry Barrow cause the debate to drag on for over five hours, only ending when James draws on his experience of presbyterianism
Presbyterianism
Presbyterianism refers to a number of Christian churches adhering to the Calvinist theological tradition within Protestantism, which are organized according to a characteristic Presbyterian polity. Presbyterian theology typically emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures,...
in the Church of Scotland
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland, known informally by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
and angrily quashes any thoughts of establishing it in the English church as a replacement for episcopacy, seeing presbyterianism as threatening the king's position as Supreme Head of the Church of England and supreme secular ruler by divine right
Divine Right
Divine Right may refer to:* The Divine right of kings, the doctrine that a monarch derives his or her power directly from God* Episcopal polity, the doctrine that is required in the church jure divino, i.e...
. He then meets with Reynolds and Andrews privately for further discussions, which end in a compromise agreement to produce an Authorised Version of the Bible with an Anglican slant but based on the Puritan-favoured Tyndale translation.
The action shifts back to Anne and the birth of the future Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
. She then goes to Tyndale with an offer from Cromwell of a place on the Privy Council
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
for the better advancement of the Protestant cause, but he refuses it and tells her that he opposes Henry's divorce and does not recognise her as Henry's true wife. Some time later Anne miscarries a male child, which bruises but does not destroy her relationship with Henry, still hopeful for a son. However, Henry then takes Anne's lady in waiting Jane Seymour as a mistress and his relationship with Anne is finally wrecked when she is imprisoned by Cromwell. Anne is then kept from communicating with Henry in the lead-up to her execution, in a pre-emptive strike by Cromwell to avoid her telling Henry of Cromwell's embezzlement of funds from dissolved monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
. The play then ends in 1603, where Anne's ghost talks with James about the Protestant Reformation she unleashed and then addresses the audience before departing.
Cast (premiere production)
- Michael Bertenshaw - Robert CecilRobert Cecil, 1st Earl of SalisburyRobert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, KG, PC was an English administrator and politician.-Life:He was the son of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley and Mildred Cooke...
, advisor to James - Sam Cox - Lancelot Andrews, head of the Anglican faction, moderate
- Naomi Cranston - Lady Jane SeymourJane SeymourJane Seymour was Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII. She succeeded Anne Boleyn as queen consort following the latter's execution for trumped up charges of high treason, incest and adultery in May 1536. She died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of...
, lady-in-waiting to Anne - John Cummins - Simpkin, servant to Wolsey and Cromwell / Parrot, servant to James
- Ben Deery - George VilliersGeorge Villiers, 1st Duke of BuckinghamGeorge Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham KG was the favourite, claimed by some to be the lover, of King James I of England. Despite a very patchy political and military record, he remained at the height of royal favour for the first two years of the reign of Charles I, until he was assassinated...
, lover of James - Mary Doherty - Lady Celia, lady-in-waiting to Anne
- John DougallJohn Dougall (actor)John Dougall is a British actor. He trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. He is notable for his appearances on television, radio and the stage, including Anne Boleyn and several productions for Propeller....
- Thomas CromwellThomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of EssexThomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, , was an English statesman who served as chief minister of King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540....
, advisor to Wolsey and Henry - Will Featherstone - Sloop, servant to Wolsey and Cromwell
- James Garnon - James IJames I of EnglandJames VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
- Peter Hamilton Dyer - William TyndaleWilliam TyndaleWilliam Tyndale was an English scholar and translator who became a leading figure in Protestant reformism towards the end of his life. He was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe, and by Martin Luther...
- Anthony Howell - Henry VIIIHenry VIII of EnglandHenry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
- Colin Hurley - Cardinal Wolsey / Henry Barrow, Puritan extremist
- Amanda Lawrence - Lady Rochford, chief lady-in-waiting to Anne
- Miranda RaisonMiranda Raison-Early life:Born in Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, her father Nick Raison is a jazz pianist and artist, while her mother Caroline read the news for Anglia Television. She has two brothers and two sisters: Ed , Rosie, Sam and May. Her parents divorced when she was six years old, and her father remarried...
- Anne BoleynAnne BoleynAnne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the... - Dickon Tyrrell - Dr John ReynoldsJohn RainoldsJohn Rainolds , English divine, was born about Michaelmas 1549 at Pinhoe, near Exeter.He was educated at Merton and Corpus Christi Colleges, Oxford, becoming a fellow of the latter in 1568. In 1572-73 he was appointed reader in Greek, and his lectures on Aristotle's Rhetoric laid the sure basis of...
, head of the Puritan faction, moderate
Unseen characters
- Thomas MoreThomas MoreSir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...
- Catherine of AragonCatherine of AragonCatherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...
- Princess ElizabethElizabeth I of EnglandElizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
- Francis I of FranceFrancis I of FranceFrancis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
Reviews
External links
- http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/theatre/on-stage/anne-boleyn