Henry IV at TFANA

Roughly midway through Henry IV, part 2, Sir John Falstaff visits Justice Robert Shallow, who has been marveling along with his cousin Silence at “how many of my old acquaintance are dead.” At Theater for a New Audience in Brooklyn on a recent evening, Shallow (John Keating) and Silence (Steven Epp) sounded like a chorus of summer frogs, croaking merrily back-and-forth: “Dead sir”; “Jesu, dead!”; “Dead, dead, dead.” Their voices mingled with the faint chatter of birdsong; the stage was bathed in soft, yellow light. Death has come for many of Shallow’s “old acquaintance.” It is coming for him, for his cousin, for their guest Sir John Falstaff. But the afternoon is long. The sun is out. There is still plenty of time to sit in the orchard, taste “last year’s pippin,” and reminisce.

With a performance run from January 30 to March 2, 2025, Dakin Matthews’s neatly crafted adaptation of the two Henry IV plays transposes this scene into Part 1, before the climactic Battle of Shrewsbury. This makes good sense, plot-wise: in Part 2 as it is written, Falstaff goes to Shallow to recruit soldiers; here, he’s on the same mission, but for an earlier conflict. It makes sense, too, as a move that helps audiences experience both sprawling plays together as a single, seamless work: when Shallow re-emerges a few scenes later—excitedly…