SOURCE: Marks, Peter. “Political Spin Decked in Royal Trappings.” New York Times 147 (28 May 1998): B3; E3.

In the essay below, Marks reviews the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1998 production of Henry VIII directed by Gregory Doran. He praises the traditional staging of the play and comments on the production's pageantry, including the bejeweled set and gold-flecked costumes.

The English King's gilded throne positively shimmers at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, but gold is not all that glisters in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Henry VIII. Distinguished by the sparkling portrayals of Paul Jesson as Henry and Jane Lapotaire as the first of his six wives, Katherine of Aragon, this superb new staging brings out just about all the luster one could hope for in what has always been considered one of Shakespeare's lesser history plays.

The production, which opened on Tuesday night and runs through Sunday at the Majestic Theater...