Henry IV, Part I

Wombat Theatre's forthcoming production of The History of Henry the Fourth emphasizes moral ambiguity of Shakespeare's History with a dystopian vision, setting the play in the near future. 

"Honor is a mere scutcheon" says William Shakespeare's most famous degenerate, Sir John Falstaff, in Wombat Theatre Co's forthcoming production of Henry the Fourth Part I, "and so ends my catechism." In the play, the title character, King Henry IV, is a bureaucratic war-monger; his son, Prince Henry, is a slumming poser; and the reigning champion of England, Hotspur, is a hot-blooded, ill-tempered, hard-charging contrarian. Though originally set in fifteenth-century England, Wombat Theatre Co's production, set in the near future, asks us if this world is also where we are headed: the wars never end, the rulers are unassailable to reason, the ones enjoying themselves are plastered more thoroughly than the walls. The degenerate mentioned above is, after all, Sir John Falstaff, a corrupter of the youth, perhaps, but who says the youth were not already corrupt?