First I read the books. Somewhat reluctantly, I admit. I was worried "Wolf Hall" and it's sequal "Bring Up The Bodies" would read like pop history but to my relief they were enthralling and historically accurate. At least I think they are. In the current (the) Paris Review there is a long and engaging interview with the author of both books, Hilary Mantel in which she claims that they are indeed. The books are narrated in the first person by Thomas Cromwell. Mantel draws us in to the story the fictional story she has created within this context and the books are hard to put down.
This past week I attended both parts of The Royal Shakespeare Company's "Wolf Hall" at the Winter Garden Theatre. Ben Miles, last seen in New York in 2009 in "The Norman Conquests" but best know on this side of the pond as the handsome, not very bright womanizer in the British sitcom "Coupling," is Cromwell.
Ben Miles is remarkable. Since the books are a kind of interior monologue, as Cromwell (or as Anne calls him "Crumwheel") he commands the stage for the entirety of the plays. Historically we know that Cromwell was a common man, the son of a blacksmith, who lifted himself up through his intelligence and shrewd business dealings to become Henry VIII's confident and chief advisor. Although Miles is not an especially large man, on stage he creates the aura of being a massive presence, both physically and intellectually. His Cromwell has the magnetism, present in the books, that draws both friends and enemies to him and the thick skin necessary to survive at court. And everyone is a little in love with him, including Henry.
The performances are all pretty perfect. Nathaniel Parker is mercurial and imposing as Henry and Lydia Leonard the most devious Anne one would want to imagine. I also especially liked Leah Brotherhead's layered and complicated Jane Seymour. But the standout in Part I is John Ramm as the self-flagulating religious scholar, and eventually Lord Chancellor, Thomas More. More loses favor with Henry at the end of Part I when he refuses to accept Anne Boleyn as Henry's queen and as a result is headless in Part II. Our loss.
But it really Ben Miles' play, as it should be.
