Henry VIII Tickets | Schedule for 2024/2025 Events

Henry VIII

Henry VIII is a play by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. It is based on Henry VIII’s life and was first published in 1623. Like other Shakespeare plays, it has an array of characters and multiple settings. For many years, the play was considered to be Shakespeare’s alone. It wasn’t until 1850 that James Spedding mentioned the possibility of collaboration between Shakespeare and Fletcher. Even though there isn’t enough evidence, it’s said that the duo collaborated on many plays.

The play’s first performance was recorded in 1613. The Globe Theatre’s roof caught fire (a real cannon was fired as a part of the play) and burned the place down. It took fifteen years for The King’s Men to perform the play at Globe Theatre again. The King’s Men is a theater company where Shakespeare worked.

Coming to modern times, Henry VIII was revived and performed several times by different production companies. The play became less popular in the mid-20th century, but it was still performed on and off throughout the century and the next.

Evergreen Themes from Henry VIII

Though Henry VIII belongs to the early 17th century, the themes used in the play are still relevant. For example, enemies, hatred, being cautious, betrayal, ambition to rule and achieve success at all costs, the role of personal desires, the need for forgiveness, etc., are some universal themes seen in the play.

The fall of Henry’s advisor, Cardinal Wolsey, and Henry’s desire to marry Anne Bullen because Queen Katherine couldn’t give him an heir to the throne are the two major events of the play. The rest of the plot revolves around these incidents.

However, there’s an argument that the play presents many events in jumbled order instead of the sequence in which they happened in history. It also doesn’t deal with Henry VIII’s other marriages.

Furthermore, the characterization appears to be prejudiced based on the playwright’s beliefs and opinions. Despite the arguments and analysis, the play has managed to keep the audience interested for many centuries. After all, the play was seen as a daring attempt by Shakespeare to present real events from history in his own style.

Herbert Beerbohm Tree's version from 1916 of Henry VIII was the longest-running version on Broadway. It had Tree in Wolsey’s role and Lyn Harding in the title role Sydney Greenstreet took over the lead role during the tours.