By Michael Toscano
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, July 27, 2006; PW03
Vpstart Crow Productions' version of "Anne of the Thousand Days" -- a docudrama that details the fateful relationship between England's King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, the woman who was briefly his queen -- is a study in casting. More than any other aspect of this production, the choice of the actors to play the leading roles has shaped the entire effort.
And that's good, because without Jay Tilley as Henry VIII and Pamela Sabella as Anne, this would be just another undistinguished rehash of old material. With them, new facets of the story are revealed.
The play, originally produced on Broadway for a relatively brief run in 1948, is Maxwell Anderson's take on a relationship that has echoed through history. Henry's lust for Anne caused him to turn England away from the Catholic Church in Rome, murder his closest advisers and upend the political order in his country.
Their thousand-day union resulted in the birth of Elizabeth, who would become one of England's most celebrated rulers. The story begins with the king's crude courtship of Anne and her refusal to become his mistress until he rids himself of his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and make her his queen. The play continues through their marriage and ends tragically in the Tower of London.
Tilley and Sabella are physical opposites and play the roles as opposite spirits. He's large, and his Henry VIII is loud and brutish. She's slight and graceful; her Anne is precise and calm. He's all bluster and fire; she's steel and ice. When they're together, something combustible happens, and their minuet of romance and power inexorably leads to a clutch of death. The scenes in which Tilley and Sabella confront each other, in romance and treachery, are enthralling.
Once Henry established the precedent, he could shed wives at will. Murder was a favorite tool. Yet Tilley finds enough humanity in Henry that it seems plausible when Anne, who initially resists him, begins to fall in love with him. That makes his rejection of her when she does not bear him a male heir all the more painful.
Sabella's Anne is a woman of strength and stately self-esteem -- and a bit manipulative. Her cold charm sometimes makes it unclear whether she's a victim or a villain. It's believable that this powerful king could end up a supplicant in her presence. The tension crackles between them. It's unclear how much director Christine Lange contributed to that, as it seems mostly chemistry between the actors.
There are some standouts in the rest of the cast. Most notably they are veteran actor Don Neal as a wily and charming Cardinal Wolsey, who fails to get the pope to annul Henry's first marriage to clear the way for Anne, and Abigail Wright, as a hotblooded and sensuous Mary Boleyn, Anne's sister and predecessor in Henry's bed. Brian Crane also has some good moments as Thomas Cromwell, the schemer who makes Anne queen and then plots against her.
The rest of the cast is largely bland, with some actors mumbling their way through lines in monotones, remaining completely contemporary and offhand in their performances. That would not be the case with a stronger director. A stronger director might also rein in Tilley just a bit when he begins to rush through his lines when Sabella is not present, failing to savor the language and dwell on what the character is doing.
This is a bare-bones production, played against black curtains and with just the occasional prop and a few lighting effects, which are quite effective and should have made Lange call for more.
"Anne of the Thousand Days" concludes this weekend. It's performed by Vpstart Crow Productions at the Cramer Center, 908 Center St., Manassas. Showtime is 8 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. For individual tickets, visithttp://www.tickets.comor call 800-955-5566. For group sales or information, call 703-365-0240 or visithttp://www.vpstartcrow.com.