Word: falstaff
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...shabbily in a lot of curio shoppes, but magnificently upheld by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The Stratford Hilton (yes, Ophelia, there is a Stratford Hilton) and the Shakespeare charge about $65 a night for two. However, a room costs an unbelievable $12 at the Strathedon, and $15 at the Falstaff, noted for its robust meals...
...first Dishy practices poses and gestures at great length. When he discovers the forged love note, he milks its contents interminably, sketching the enigmatic capital letters in the air and mouthing them repeatedly ad nauseam. And his labored attempts to achieve a smile should have stayed in vaudeville. Like Falstaff in Henry IV, Malvolio hasn't learned a thing by the end of the play, but he is not utterly stupid. Yet Dishy makes him seem more slow-witted than Sir Andrew...
University of Notre Dame William F. Buckley, LL.D., author, editor. A stowaway foretopman on the ship of state; a franc-tireur for the West and Christendom; a Burke, a Roland, a Quixote, with a whiff of Falstaff and a swing of the snickersnee...
...prince from tavern to court expresses the theme of the play, so Jonathan Emerson's performance as Hal points up the lesson at the Loeb. Emerson handles his comic scenes skillfully, lolling drunkenly onstage, stingingly imitating Hotspur and his lady Percy, and showing, as when he helps the helpless Falstaff into his boots, a tender and subtle shift of mood. But when confronted with a serious scene, Emerson abandons his character to the exigencies of position. So, when reprimanded by the king, Emerson's Hal does not convincingly defend himself. And after having killed Hotspur, this Hal cowers in horror...
...banners behind the prince do not look quite splendid enough; the trumpets ring a little hollow. As the lights go down on this Henry IV one remembers not the holders of exalted positions but the ignoble Falstaff who has already exited offstage, dragging the body of Hotspur as if he had killed the young leader himself. The final lesson of this production is that it is people who endure. The positions they hold, no matter how impressively presented, are, as Falstaff might say, mere "scutcheons...