Jolin Polasek, Jim Hopkins and Kelly Mengelkoch, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company - Photo: Jeanna Vella
Theater folks are a superstitious lot, and King Henry VIII had a ton of bad luck when it came to making the right choices in marriage and siring an heir. So it’s probably appropriate that Cincinnati Shakespeare Company presents Henry VIII (or All is True) for the first time, opening on Friday the 13th. This production lets CSC check off No. 35 of Shakespeare’s 37 known plays that they’ve produced during 18 seasons. (They plan to complete the canon during their 20th season in 2014.) The show is also a sequel of sorts to Robert Bolt’s 1960 play, A Man for All Seasons, which opened CSC’s season in late August: That work focused on Sir Thomas More, Henry’s moral but ill-fated chancellor who challenged the king’s right to divorce and remarry. The actors who played historic roles in that production repeat them in the current show, in which the story focuses on the willful king who was hell-bent on getting what he wanted. Or what he thought he wanted. By the way, during a production of the show at London’s Globe Theatre in 1613, a cannon shot ignited the theater’s thatch roof and destroyed the building. CSC promises a hot night, but we’re counting on the building on Race Street remaining intact for the show’s run, through Feb. 5. Tickets are $22-$28.
