Unseen play The Last Wife nears sold-out run at Stratford Festival
Before starting previews at Stratford Festival on July 30, only a handful of people had ever seen The Last Wife.
"The people who see it in the first preview will see something completely raw. It's compelling and it's also terrifying," laughs playwright Kate Hennig.
- Stratford Festival reveals costumes for Love's Labour's Lost
- The Diary of Anne Frank stars the descendant of Holocaust survivors
- She Stoops To Conquer takes on 18th century 'feminism'
Despite being launched — virtually untested — onto the stage at Stratford, audiences have clamoured for tickets. The show's run has been extended three times so far.
"It's a bit of a 'pinch me' moment," said Hennig. "I think that some how the whole Tudor thing is really up in the zeitgeist right now. I think it's just something that's really, really compelling to people right now."
Henry VIII vs. Catherine Parr
Hennig's play is a contemporary take on the relationship between King Henry VIII and his last wife, Catherine Parr, framed by her relationship with Thomas Seymour.
Parr had fallen in love with Seymour before marrying Henry VIII, and she and Seymour married three months after Henry's death.
"I have taken the historic information out of its context," explains Hennig. "So that we can see, in Catherine's story, we can see our own world."
"We can see our own relationships in the relationships between a king and a queen. And we can see the fallibility of having a love affair even though you are devoted and loving your husband. So it brings up a whole bunch of contemporary questions, issues, and situations."
Hear the full interview with Kate Hennig, including her story of how the Arab Spring inspired the play, in the audio file below.