The poster for “Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light,” now airing on PBS’ “Masterpiece.” Its story of power and glittering doom in Tudor England holds up a mirror to our own mirthless times.
“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” — Shakespeare, “Henry IV, Part 2”
“Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light” and “Marie Antoinette” — airing back to back on PBS’ WNET-Channel 13 on Sunday nights — give us two kings in crisis as seen through the eyes of two insiders who will soon be axed.
Read MoreThe Broadway cast of “Six.” From left, Najah Hetsberger as Catherine of Aragon; Gianna Yanelli as Anne Boleyn, Kelsie Watts as Jane Seymour, Krystal Hernandez as Anne of Cleves, Kay Sibal as Katherine Howard and Taylor Marie Daniel as Catherine Parr. Photograph by Georgette Gouveia.
These are not the best of times to be a woman, to say nothing of any minority. The rise of bro culture and misogynistic incel culture, which helped propel President Donald J. Trump back into the White House; the demise of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in government and much of the workplace; and the curtailing of reproductive rights are among the challenges that have led women to consider the backlash to their hard-won gains.
Perhaps that’s why I found the marvelously mocking Broadway musical “Six” so moving. It’s the story of a sextet of queen consorts who for most of their history were famous, even infamous, for their marriages to an orange, scowling, bloated, diseased malignant narcissist — Henry VIII. As “Six” explores with delicious irony, Henry — no Alexander the Great in the leadership department — is today mostly famous for having been married to them.
Read More“Elizabeth I (The Rainbow Portrait), attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, (circa 1602), oil on canvas. Reproduced with the permission of the Marquess of Salisbury, Hatfield House. Image © Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, UK/Bridgeman Images.
They weren’t England’s most successful dynasty. That distinction belongs to the Plantagenets some 300 years of brilliant, beautiful, bloody backstabbers who would’ve eaten the characters on “Game of Thrones” and “House of the Dragon” alive.
But in many ways the Tudors are as fresh and modern as the Windsors in everything from Lucy Worsley’s “Secrets of the Six Wives” docudrama series to Broadway’s “Six” to Starz’s “Becoming Elizabeth.” And that, as a fabulous, beautifully sited new exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan demonstrates, has as much to do with their ability to market themselves as it does with the history of their dynastic ambitions and complicated relationships.
Read MoreDiana, Princess of Wales in Russia in 1995. Photograph by Nick Parfjonov.
In “Spencer” — the third leg in a November Diana trilogy that includes Season Four of “The Crown,” now on DVD, and “Diana: The Musical,” now on Broadway — director Pablo Larrain does for the late Princess of Wales what he did for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in “Jackie” (2016) : He imagines a goddess at a tipping point.
Read MoreThe Fresno Bee columnist Victor Davis Hanson has written a column comparing President Donald J. Trump’s slash-and-burn style with the Greco-Macedonian conqueror of the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, cutting the Gordion knot impatiently with his sword, thus ensuring the prophecy that whoever did so would become lord of Asia.
Hanson’s gotten some bristling responses from history buffs, and my first thought was to lend my voice to the chorus, being rather protective of Alexander myself. More than anything I wanted to say: “I knew Alexander. Alexander was a friend of mine. Trump, you’re no Alexander.” But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the issue is deeper than Hanson and his critics might’ve realized. ...
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Somewhere up there, Princess Diana is smiling.
And Wallis Warfield Simpson, aka the Duchess of Windsor, is laughing her skinny butt off.
For Prince Harry of Wales has announced that come next spring he is taking a bride. And not just any bride but a divorced, American one at that. ...
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When I interviewed historian David Starkey about his new documentary and book “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” in 2001, I asked him about the downfall of the most bewitching of the wives, Anne Boleyn (No. 2) How did such a smart Rules Girl lose her head?
Starkey’s response was a shrewd one: What’s attractive in a mistress is often annoying in a wife.
I thought of that as I watched President Donald J. Trump back on the stump as if it were 2020. (God, if only it were.) Not that Trump is any Anne Boleyn. If anything, his outsize ego, multiple wives and sybaritic cruelty are much more reminiscent of Henry. But The Donald is an Anne in this regard: They have proved better at the pursuit than the prize. ...
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