SOURCE: Brady, Owen E. Review of Henry VI: Revenge in France, Henry VI: Revolt in England. Theatre Journal 55, no. 1 (2003): 148-49.

In the following review, Brady commends Leon Rubin's 2003 adaptation of the Henry VI plays—Revenge in France and Revolt in England—particularly Rubin's ability to shape this episodic historical sequence into a clear and coherent production of contemporary relevance.

Director Leon Rubin's deft editing of Shakespeare's bloody Henry VI trilogy into two productions commissioned by the Stratford Festival gives the bard's episodic history plays a terrible relevance and coherence. Along with clarifying the political broils in fifteenth-century England for an audience not necessarily familiar with them, Rubin's two-part version creates a Machiavellian world peopled by ambitious characters embodying the human will to power. Their pride unleashes civil butchery in terms so savage that the contemporary audience feels uncomfortably at home. Using the betrayals, burnings, stabbings, and beheadings that...