The Smoking Mirror Theatre Company
Off-Broadway
29 August 2025
There is a lot to be said about this very downplayed work of William Shakespeare. The entire show is incredibly political and there are certainly themes that can easily be seen as parallels to the modern day political regime in America… I’m just not sure if the show exemplifies that in the way that is necessarily intended by this production.
My first question — if this is a parallel to the current administration, who is the Trump‐like character in King John? Is it King John himself? The character who is seen in a positive light by his fellow Englishmen (eventually, at the end), but also as someone who flip flopped on their standards and killed at a whim for power. Or is the Trump‐like character supposed to be The Bastard, Philip Faulconbridge? A character who just kind of falls into place, in line for the throne. He rambles, he has asides to the audience, but he never really says much. However, he is violent, he is there to take the glory, and most importantly, he doesn’t actually do much — everything happens around him and he gets the benefit of it. In fact, his defining characteristic is his lust for power.
The political nature of this show goes down even to the colouring of the costuming. The English wore red — mostly in the form of sashes and the French wore blue, also mostly in the form of sashes. Were these colours chosen specifically to match the colours typically associated with the Democratic and Republican parties in America? I can’t say for certain, but I’d suspect so. It must be noted, however, if the French are intended to be representative of the democrats and the English representative of republicans — the political ideal of the show falls apart. Shakespeare, being an Englishman, who had to write a certain way to please the crown had no choice but to make the French be as violent or even more so than the English — which undermines the entire idea of the political nature because it was written with bias. This leaves me to wonder, perhaps the point is not one is better than the other. Perhaps the point is that they are both equally bad and that the influence of religion poisons power.
I do find it interesting that the character who causes the most actual harm is that of Cardinal Pandulph. He is the mouthpiece from the Vatican and he pushes the war between Louis the Dauphin and King John forward with a slithering snakelike ability. Interestingly enough, he wears purple. Purple is of course, the colour of royalty in Ancient Rome, but it is also the colour that you get when blue and red are mixed.
The colour scheme can of course be interpreted that the church or religion is the real issue behind politics as everything that happens in this show is a direct result of interference of the (in this case) Catholic Church. And this would resonate with modern politics as it is not uncommon to see religion become involved.
The rest of the costuming was simple — all black. This was particularly wonderful during scenes of battle, which was done with a bit of a choreographed fighting and dance. However, most notably, was the decision of the actors (minus a few main characters) being completely covered with only their eyes showing. The names of those covered characters are not important. They are nothing more than unnamed casualties in a meaningless battle.
The mostly black costuming went well with the black box theatre and minimal set pieces (mostly consisting of multiple black boxes that the actors could stand on and an all black throne).
The show used a nice mixture of what I can only describe as some sort of tribal/battle music and religious hymns which mirrored the war and religion beautifully throughout the entire show.
I cannot even begin to discuss the talent of the cast. Some of the more notable cast members were Bellamy Woodside Ridinger who played King John and had an amazing death scene, among many emotionally powerful displays of both fear and success. Mateu Parallada who played The Bastard Philip Faulconbridge who is linguistically able to navigate the often complex language of Shakespeare with ease. Ruby Rich who played the character of Constance with such emotion — she really gave this performance her everything! But perhaps the actor who caught my eye the most was Martin Challinor who played both Cardinal Pandulph and the character of Hubert.
Martin Challinor was able to transform from the slimy, sinister Cardinal into the scared knight unable to bring himself to actual harm Arthur. And most impressively, he seems to do this with ease.
This show relies on a cast of eleven actors to play a variety of different characters. And this show nails that.
There certainly were parts of this show that could have been cut without having a major impact on the story and still maintaining the integrity of the story. That being said, I would personally love to see a live production of Shakespeare that has not been cut at all — bring on all five acts
This show does Shakespeare justice. Well done.
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