Wowed by ATF’s King’s Wives; bold take on old tale

Chronicle Managing Editor Cathy DeDe writes: The King’s Wives, it has legs. A musical-in-progress about Henry the Eighth’s first two wives, Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, King’s Wives was powerfully sung and acted in a concert version by the Adirondack Theatre Festival last month.

Set with contemporary costumes that yet indicated historical context, and played on a stage, nearly bare except for the band, and a line of mismatched chairs for the actors that subtly evoked rank and period: This already felt like a fully realized work unto itself.

Like Fully Committed, one of ATF’s greatest success stories that made it, yes, to Broadway, I fully believe King’s Wives could go a far distance.

More than anything I’ve seen in a long time, “the book,” or storyline, is what’s key, here, to future success. ATF gave it a great reading, but it’s the gem of the musical’s idea, the skillful songs and lyrics of creators Mêlisa Annis and Jamie Floyd, that matter most.

Henry the Eighth’s first two wives, and his daughter Mary: Here they are not history’s usual playthings — laughable punch lines at worst, at best powerless subjects of a capricious ruler driven by carnal urges and the desire for a male heir at all costs.

We’ve heard their stories before, the six wives’ historic fates reduced with salacious mirth to the two-line nursery-rhyme: “Divorced, beheaded, died/Divorced, beheaded, survived.”

This version highlights Catherine’s tactical intelligence and Anne’s humanity. Even this Henry, who lusts, struts and preens, is also a receptive human partner, overtaken by ambition and swayed by self-servingly ambitious courtiers. How true a reading it is, who can say, though they said the show is built on research. A fun, sophisticated piece, I hope it survives the fickle fates.

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