"Will Somers: Keeping Your Head. The Most Challenging Performance Yet.

Photo: McGihon /Postmedia  Pierre Brault.

The title of this extraordinarily dense and  multiple-voiced  monologue reveals the macabre sense of humour underlying Pierre Brault’s text. Brault incarnates the Jester at the court of Henry VIII who by some miracle managed to keep his head during the whole reign of the monstrous monarch. “I make him laugh” replied Somers when asked how he survived all those years.

In fact, his saucy, subversive, sense of fun and which allowed him to trespass boundaries no one else could, transforms this character into a fascinating stage persona who spent his whole life performing and manoeuvering within the complex politics of the English court. Brault transforms his character into a slippery narrator with quick witted double entendres and word plays, winks and jokes that go zipping by and almost evaporate if you don’t pay close attention. He is also the conscious performer commenting both on the acting process and the role of the audience .

Mainly however, the Jester is the gaze of the lower class, the outsider who keeps his eye on the Tudors and lets us into their private  world from his own special perspective that is both shocking and titillating. As he switches from the sweet voices of the queens who pass through Henry’s bedroom to the many men who grace the sovereign’s court, including Cromwell, Thomas Moore, the German artist Hans Holbein, and so many more individuals, he incarnates a whole community of voices that were important historical actors in the life of the British monarchy at the period when Henry broke away from the Catholic church, removed the heads of those who no longer served his purpose and satisfied his ferocious sexual appetites with women whom he wooed and tossed aside like garbage . Brault gets it all beautifully (and his accents remain impeccable I was told ). We  are left breathless as this snickering little jester, like a chameleon, changes his spots, transforms his voice and becomes all the creatures who inhabit his world. Director Al Connors has left his mark on the humour of the Jester’s portrayal and Lewis Caunter’s sound design brought in the slice and grind as the instrument of horror chops away, helping us picture those terrible events, which reach their culmination in the description of Brault’s version of Cromwell’s botched beheading. that took 13 swings of the axe.

His portrait of Henry VIII was particularly strong as he shows us the slow disintegration of that monstrous body as it gets larger, and more cumbersome, a mound of flesh literally rotting away to the point where the children don’t want to be near him because “He smells! “ they yell. Even Henry’s reaction when he compares Holbein’s portrait of Anne of Cleves to the real face of the newly betrothed was a perfect picture of royal disgust that Brault masterfully projected. No doubt Brault took advantage of Holbein’s reputation as an artist whose work was considered excellent propaganda for the king . The artist turned him into a "fantastic amalgam of the static and the swaggering, and is unique in royal portraiture. Indeed, it was considered vulgar in the refined courts of Europe”.(1) The Truth was that “At the age of 45 Henry was on the brink of old age[…] His thrombosed legs were, in reality, bandaged to cover open sores issuing stinking pus.” And all this was revealed in Brault’s performance which was much enhanced by Martin Conboys projection of Holbein’s portraits and the subtle use of lights that switched us back and forth between historical periods.

One might say that the great density of information and references to the individuals he portrayed was not always easy to keep tabs on especially some of the women whose voices became difficult to distinguish. The theatre might have published a chronological list of the wives and children in the programme just to help us keep it all straight. The evening I was there I also had the sense that Pierre was a bit rushed and I often wished he would take his time. The text has us slipping quickly from one rapid encounter to the next and we do need time to adjust. Even though the characters of Henry VIII and Will Somers remain steadfast throughout and hold the narrative together, we still have to place who is where and what they are doing and for those of us not too versed in Tudor History, in spite of the recent TV series, we need time to put it all together.

Nevertheless, this is one of the most challenging texts Brault has ever undertaken both from his own point of view as an actor and from the point of view of the audience. The event leaves us with the sense we have been through a profoundly transformative theatrical experience. Pierre is pushing all his limits now and is truly seeking out his ultimate acting element which is on the brink of pure perfection. Do yourself a favour and run to see this one. 

Will Somers: Keeping Your Head written and performed by Pierre Brault

Directed by Al Connors. Set and lighting by Martin Conboy

Sound design by Lewis Caunter

(1)  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5206727/Was-Hans-Holbeins-Henry-VIII-the-best-piece-of-propaganda-ever.html