WAM Theatre, Lenox
by Gail Burns
Kate Hennig is a diverse, multi-award-winning theatre
artist, with over 30 years of professional experience as a performer. “The Last
Wife” was inspired by the life of Katherine Parr (1512-1548), the last of the
six wives of King Henry VIII. Katherine was an educated woman who had had two
husbands before Henry. Hennig’s play tells the story of Kate and Henry.
SPOTLIGHT: How did you come to write this play?
KATE HENNIG: This strange journey started for me in 2011,
during the Arab spring. I was looking at all these dictators, these men in the
Middle East who were overthrown, and I started looking for the women. Where
were the women in this story? My thoughts went straight to Henry VIII, as he is
an identifiable dictator of my own cultural past.
SPOTLIGHT: And what drew you to specifically to Katherine
Parr?
KATE: I learned how unique her relationship with, and
influence on, Henry was among his wives. She could speak to him the way none of
the others could, and he would take the sharpness of her tongue. Her influence
over his daughters Mary and Elizabeth was tremendous. The letters between
Katherine and Henry’s son, Edward VI, are intimate and moving.
Did you know Katherine Parr was the first woman to have her
writing published in the English language under her own name? Why don’t we know
more about this woman who had so many accomplishments in her own right?
SPOTLIGHT: What inspired you to move the story to the
present day?
KATE: I set it in the present day because that’s the root of
my interest. There are women now who are silent, like the women behind those
Arab Spring leaders. I look at ISIL/ISIS – where are the women? That led me to
use the contemporary voice, to try to echo what women are dealing with now in
what Katherine was dealing with. It is still happening. We struggle to find a
place in leadership as women and we still struggle to find a voice. We have
come a long way in recent decades, but the Tudors had come a long way too.
Tudor women were given fantastic educations, they were writers, they were
humanists, and then BOOM the Puritans came in and it was all undone. The male
animal is larger and can always physically dominate, and is prone to dominate.
We see that now. This story fits neatly in to present day American politics,
audiences will see the correlation.
SPOTLIGHT: Is playwriting a new venture for you?
KATE: I’ve been writing plays for 14 years, which is not
long in the scope of my 35-year career in theatre. Being an actor, I have an
understanding from the inside of how the play structure works and how
characters work. I would be happy to act any of the roles in my work. I
wouldn’t want to put any character up on stage who is boring to play or who has
little to do.
SPOTLIGHT: The Last Wife had its premiere last summer at the
Stratford Festival. That’s an auspicious beginning!
KATE: This is the first major production I’ve had of my
work. I have a long history at Stratford. It is thrilling to have an organization
of this caliber take your play and do it with some of the best actors and a
top-notch creative team. It was an extraordinary experience for me. Before
anyone had even seen the play, six months before the opening, we were selling
out, so obviously the subject matter and the actors and the Stratford setting
appealed to audiences. Then once the play was running they sold out and
extended the run three times. I was gob-smacked and really humbled to have a
beginning like that to my playwriting career.
The Northeast Regional Premiere of “The Last Wife” takes
place at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, October 13 – November 5, 2017. For
ticket information check WAM’s website at www.WAMtheatre.com.
