Henry VI Part 3
Writer: William Shakespeare
Director: Stephen Hopley
Flow Studios, Camperdown
July 10 – August 2, 2025
This is the third instalment in Sydney Shakespeare Company’s Henry VI cycle. I’ve yet to see Parts 1 and 2 but I will. And I suggest you do the same.
Henry VI Part 3 is a beautifully clean, sparse production. No set. No lighting changes. No soundscape. Just actors, the text and sweat. It wears its simplicity like a badge. Everything unnecessary is stripped away, all focus on the rise and ruin of men, and one extraordinary woman.
Lana Morgan blazes as Margaret, the She-Wolf. Luminous, driven and utterly unapologetic, she steps into the space her husband cannot fill and rules it. Chris Miller’s York, her bitter rival, is all sinew and fire, roaring his legacy into the void before his brutal end. I’d return just to watch the scene between these two: pure, venomous invective, with the king himself conspicuously absent. Henry who?
Speaking of which Logan McArthur offers a Henry VI made of fog and prayer: soft, pliable, bowed under the weight of the crown. The performance is layered and mannered. Alex Nicholas’s Warwick swaggers and schemes with dangerous charm, a blade one moment, a diplomat the next. Amy Silvana Thomas stepped in at the last minute to cover Prince Edward and Elizabeth Woodville when another actor was ill. Calm, clear and committed, she steadied with quiet brilliance and made you forget the script in hand.
It was Renaye Loryman as Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who left the deepest mark. Witty, chilling and startlingly fresh, she made every line feel newly minted. “I am myself alone”, Richard declares, and in Loryman’s hands, it was prophecy. When she stalks off at the end with a blade in hand and a butcher’s eye it made me want to follow them just to see what happens next. I’d love to see the Richard III this actor would deliver.
Two scenes linger. Henry, yearning for the shepherd’s life as his kingdom bleeds around him and Richard’s dark soliloquy, claiming inevitability with pride. One man naively dreams of a peaceful life that does not exist. The other is ready to bite the world just to watch it bleed. The relevance of the production couldn’t be clearer. It asks questions of us, of our society and our leaders, and it never lets you rest on an easy answer. Maybe there are no answers, just pain and war.
A final note. I may be a cursed reviewer. My last review involved a collapsing set. This one? A late cast change and a drunk audience member who mumbled lines, smashed a bottle and had to be escorted out. But that’s why we come, isn’t it? To watch incredibly talented and committed people make art despite the world.
