Quintessence Theatre Group presents Rare Accidents: The Escapades of Prince Hal & Falstaff, adapted by Alex Burns

Text in all caps demonstrates the chronology of events for an audience who could get lost when it comes to which Henry is rebelling against whom. The show echoes the excellent staging of Burns’s 2025 Antony & Cleopatra (another history from the Bard). While this epic direction works marvelously for a piece which feels even to a modern audience like a historical romance or a sweeping blockbuster, it's not really suited to two plays where much of the action takes place in a tavern among wisecracking, low-class sex workers and thieves.

Complications for every Henry

Now that Henry IV (Phillip Brown) is firmly the King of England, complications have begun to pile up. Henry “Hotspur” Percy (Daniel Miller) and his father Northumberland (the always excellent Christopher Patrick Mullen), once IV’s firm allies, are in open rebellion against the crown. In exile from court, Prince Hal (Tyler Bey, who also plays Richard II), Henry IV’s young son and heir, parties and lives in ignominy with Falstaff and other low-class rogues like Poins (Sam Pottinger), Pistol (Miller again), and Doll Tearsheet (Madeleine Garcia).

Hard-drinking, witty, and a consummate liar, the magnificent, cheerfully dishonorable errant knight Falstaff (Scott Greer) serves as Hal's father figure, a guide to the debauched side of human nature. Yet Hal does plan to eventually return to court and “please again to be himself” when he's ready. His plan is sped up by Henry Percy's alliance with Scottish lord Douglas (Kelechi Udenkwo, who also plays Bardolph) and Hal bringing the cowardly Falstaff to the battlefield alongside him.

A difficult adaptation

Falstaff, who famously muses that “the better part of valor is discretion,” might have laughed at the inherent pretension of John Burkland's flashy lighting, the insistence that these events largely involving rich jerks with titles are important. I don't think this is entirely Burns's fault either; Henry IV Parts I and II seem difficult to adapt to the stage given their dual plotlines. Nevertheless, clocking in at more than three hours, Rare Accidents is too long and sometimes ponderous, emphasizing big, empty themes of succession and monarchy when I longed to return to the bar.

In the playbill, Burns tells audiences not to think too hard about the history and focus on the themes of fatherhood and identity. Ironically, that's exactly where Rare Accidents goes a bit wrong. The adaptation loses sight of interesting interpretations, such as Hal's sexual relationship with Poins or Percy's closeness to Northumberland—contrasting Hal’s relationship with his own father—without fully binding together the themes of succession and fatherhood evident in the material. I'm not as interested in the Game of Thrones and I, Claudius-style, “heavy lies the head that wears the crown” machinations as Burns is, and I don't feel any emotional catharsis when Hal becomes Henry V. I know why he takes the crown. I don't know what actually motivates him to become king and embrace his true father, rejecting his old one in Falstaff. (Greer at least is fantastic in the role, and in the climax, a thousand wounds open up in those dark eyes.)

Succession circa 1400?

It doesn't help either that Bey thrives with the Bard's slang and double entendres, but feels stiff speaking in declarative verse. Likewise, the scenes in Mistress Quickly's (Sarah Knittel) tavern are so alive. Greer, bedecked in flower-power jeans and dress shirts a size too tight by Anna Sorrentino, brings out Falstaff's lust for life and vulnerability, and watching Hal and Jack trade fat jokes is a fine time in the theater. Compared to Henry Bolingbroke and Percy literally spitting at each other about hostages, favors, power, etc., the sense of fun is unmistakable. Prestige TV, after all, has been recycling themes about ruling, war, and statecraft for decades now. Where Burns wanted Succession circa 1400, like any good Philadelphian, I prefer the petty schemes, stupidity, and heavy drinking of It's Always Sunny. A shame Rare Accidents doesn't recognize which tone is obviously superior to the other.