King Henry IV, Part One

Shakespeare Festival/LA presents the Circle X Theatre Company production of King Henry IV, Part One as part of its ambitious Summer Festival 2004. Circle X’s Co-Producing Director Tara Flynn directs.

The play follows the truant Prince Hal from the comic ground of the Boar’s Head Tavern to the battle ground of Shrewsbury as the boy becomes the man who will become the king. Hal’s father, King Henry IV, is frustrated by his son’s inability to measure up to the title Prince of Wales. Under the influence of Sir John Falstaff, Shakespeare’s greatest clown, Prince Hal is shirking responsibility and wiling away his time in the company of the gang of misfits who inhabit the Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap. While Hal is reveling, a rebellion is mounting, led by Hal’s nemesis, the hot-headed Harry Percy (Hotspur).

What does it mean to be a man? A father? A son? A husband? A clown? A rival? A prince? Shakespeare’s play explores relationships and the ideas of duty, honor and responsibility against the panoramic backdrop of war and rebellion.