I have to say that, at the opening performance, the physical largeness and roundness of Falstaff were fully conveyed but his largeness and roundness of personality were not entirely captured. Memory may be playing me false, but I have the impression that Kilty did manage to embody the latter completely in past years. Nonetheless, of all those who currently have the role in their repertories, Jerome Kilty and Eric Berry are pre-eminent.

Hopes Are Dashed

With the brilliant Hotspur dead, the scenes of military rebellion can't begin to match those of 1 Henry IV, but they need not be such a trial as they are in this production. Northumberland (Stephen Pearlman) comes on looking like Basil Rathbone, but our hopes are dashed when that hoarse, ugly voice begins to speak, And so it goes with the rest, whom I shall not bother to name. The sole exception is David Little's Lancaster, which has youth, vigor and vocal clarity; he brings much-needed life to the scenes he is in.

The ailing Henry IV (Joseph Sommer) first enters clothed in rich blue, accompanied by monks singing a Kyrie (sloppily). He kneels at a priodieu and delivers his great Sleep soliloquy competently enough to make us look forward to his scene with Prince Hal. When that comes, Hal (John Cunningham) takes the hand of the sleeping king and kisses it -- a good touch. But then the director has turned the confrontation into a screaming nightmare. The king, who will be dead in a few minutes, gets out of bed, yells and lurches about like a Hercules; and Hal responds with a torrent of extreme anger that is utterly out of place.

At the Boar's-Head Tavern, Mistress Quickly (Jan Miner), in an orange and yellow-green costume, sports an appropriately fiery head of red hair, but is otherwise forgettable. The tart-tongued tart Doll Tearsheet (Alix Elias), dark-haired and rouge-cheeked, has only her low neckline to recommend her; the monotonous and whining voice with which she delivers all her lines is painful beyond belief.

Puns and Bawdry

Douglas Watson is right to ham up the part of Pistol, since it was written as a satire on the bombastic acting style of a rival theatre troupe from which Shakespeare had seceded. Watson's gestures often clarify the bawdy puns; and, after striding a barrel as though it were a horse, he engages in a duel so vigorously that he discovers at the end that his groin flap has fallen down.

Young Alan Howard is appealing as Falstaff's page, especially when he vainly tries to conceal his master behind his tiny slip of a body. Paul Sparer brings a comically expressive face and drawn-out speech ("Jee-ee-su [long pause], dead!") to the senile Justice Shallow, but Patrick Hines overdoes his trembling and doddering companion Justice Silence.

Ed Wittstein has designed sets based on four vertical beams that function as an elevator shaft for a rising and falling structure, with two other second-storey platforms that roll in from the sides. These make some of the entrances and exits needlessly awkward. Domingo Rodriguez' costumes are, some details aside, generally apposite, and Tharon Musser's lighting is somewhat too active. John Duffy's opening A-minor music for brass, cymbals and kettledrums smacks too much of a Near East movie spectacular, but the later rustic music, in the traditional rustic key of F-major, is much better. When a lutenist appears on stage, though, we hear a harp; couldn't it at least be a guitar?

What we have, in sum, is a director who is trying to put on a show called Falstaff, a star who is playing in a different work (the one actually written by Shakespeare), and a surrounding cast that is deficient for either. We deserve better