'Wolf Hall' takes to the stage
Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize-winning best-seller about deadly intrigue at the court of King Henry VIII, "Wolf Hall" and sequel "Bring Up the Bodies" have already been adapted into plays that plunge audiences into a world of murky Tudor machinations.
As the plays move to London's West End after a rave-gathering run at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, Mantel said the characters' complex motives and shades of gray were key to the stories' adaptability.
"They are highly ambivalent and ambiguous characters — and of course there's a lot of mileage in that," Mantel said before the double bill's opening at the Aldwych Theatre on Saturday.
The story's center — the wolf of "Wolf Hall" — is Thomas Cromwell, a blacksmith's son who rose to become the feared and canny counselor to Henry VIII.
On the page — and the stage, where he's played by Ben Miles — he's hungry, gimlet-eyed and ruthless, but also wry, clever and modern, a flawed hero who has captivated millions of readers.
It was Cromwell — who had been a soldier, a banker and a lawyer — who kept Henry's coffers full and negotiated the monarch's divorce from Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. It was the most sensational divorce in British history, leading the king to break with Rome and declare himself head of the new Church of England.
Mantel gives this oft-told story the pace and twists of a political thriller. Fans of political drama might see "House of Cards" as "Wolf Hall" in modern clothes.
The plays are the work of Mike Poulton, who has adapted classics by authors including Charles Dickens and Anton Chekhov. Mantel was closely involved in the adaptation, and while that could be a recipe for tension, Poulton said it turned out to be "a joyous collaboration."
Mantel is less directly involved in the TV series, a six-part adaptation of both books that is written by Peter Straughan. He's an old hand at intrigue, having adapted John Le Carre's spy classic "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" for the screen. Rylance, who plays Cromwell, has said the adaptation is "ingenious and faithful."
Away from the 16th century, Mantel has a book of short stories, intriguingly titled "The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher," coming out in the fall.
And then she has to bring Cromwell's story to a close. Mantel is currently writing the final volume of her Tudor trilogy, "The Mirror and the Light," and she says the book is being subtly changed by working on the plays.