Marin Theatre Company’s compelling ‘Anne Boleyn’
Published 8:58 am, Wednesday, April 20, 2016

When Anne Boleyn walks on stage carrying her severed head in a satchel, you know this is not going to be the usual costume drama.

After Anne Boleyn shows off her severed head as a way of welcoming the audience, she spends the next 2 ½ hours leaning in and defying the notion of what a lady is supposed to do at court. She won’t sit tittering with the ladies in waiting, sewing or reading romances about knights in armor. Rather, she is going to woo a married king, make him wait seven years before they consummate their relationship (to paraphrase Beyonce, if Henry likes it then he better put a ring on it) and she is going to open the door to Protestants and to the eventual rupture between the Church of England and Rome.

As played by Liz Sklar, Anne is defiant, determined and devout. She is devoted to the work of William Tyndale (Dan Hiatt), a Protestant-leaning scholar whose books, including the Bible he translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek, were seen as heretical and banned in England. She and Henry, fueled by her passion, become a power couple but only until she fails to provide him a male heir and his eye wanders toward young Lady Jane Seymour (Lauren Spencer).

In addition to all the drama at court that has been dramatized many times, Brenton allows us a glimpse of Anne’s legacy by shifting centuries, moving from the court of King Henry VIII to King James (both played with remarkable, scene-stealing gusto by Craig Marker). James, newly arrived from Scotland and installed on the throne, not only tries on Anne’s coronation dress (much to the delight of his lover, George Villiers) but also suspects that there was more to Anne than her reputation as a demon harlot. Once he discovers her Tyndale books, he figures out that it was she — he calls her “the whore who changed England” — leading the push to realize the King as the leader of the church and not the Pope.

MTC play recasts Anne Boleyn as mother of the church

A play by Howard Brenton originally commissioned by Shakespeare’s Globe in London, where it premiered in 2010, “Anne Boleyn” now makes its West Coast premiere at MTC in a lively staging by artistic director Jasson Minadakis.

The story jumps back and forth in time between Anne Boleyn’s time in the late 1520s and 1530s and the beginning of King James’ reign, starting in 1603. Craig Marker does a splendid job of playing both kings — the boisterous and bawdy Scotsman James and the passionate and impulsive Henry.

The large cast of 10 local actors is terrific throughout. Hiatt doubles as the gentle but uncompromising Protestant religious scholar William Tyndale, and Ari is a cold-bloodedly Machiavellian Thomas Cromwell, always scheming ways to rise in power by tearing everyone else down. Charles Shaw Robinson plays a perfect straight man to James as his chief minister Robert Cecil, and he tenaciously struggles to retain his stature as Cardinal Wolsey, Henry’s Lord Chancellor, whose perceived dithering Anne detests. Arwen Anderson is a sympathetic presence as Anne’s sister-in-law and confidante, who’s often bullied into betraying her, with Carrie Lyn Brandon and Lauren Spencer as two bubbly members of her retinue, one of whom will prove to be instrumental later.

Nina Ball’s set is fantastic, evoking an ornate, cathedral-like palace with stag’s head silhouettes on the walls. At least in Anne’s day, there’s always someone lurking behind a pillar watching and listening to people’s private conversations, usually several people. Ashley Holvick’s attractive costumes suggest the period without particularly being beholden to it, adding the occasional stiletto heels or T-shirt with impunity.

This revisionist depiction of Anne Boleyn as a dedicated religious reformer is a refreshingly original take (if maybe also a far-fetched one) that gives Brenton an opportunity to play with the ways that people have always found to turn religion to their own ends. James’ obsession with Anne seems unconvincingly contrived, but the juxtaposition between the two figures and the effect that each of them had in shaping the religious culture of the country proves fascinating. Whether or not King James actually ever gave the fact much thought, it’s certainly true that we’d never have had the King James Bible were it not for the English Reformation sparked, in her own unlikely way, by Anne Boleyn.

“Shrewd, funny and

drop-dead inventive...

a captivating new play.”