THE CONSORTS

2 women, 2 men, 1 male voice-over

Brief Synopsis of The Consorts

The play takes place on a frigid evening in Oxford, England, 1556. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer—a religious reformer who is now considered an enemy of the crown—faces a fiery execution come morning. But what seems an ineluctable fate abruptly takes on a different cast after Cranmer receives a mysterious letter from London. If Cranmer recants his Protestantism, the letter claims, then Queen ‘Bloody’ Mary will spare him. Cranmer now faces a crisis of conscience because he must choose whether to lie and live or to keep true to his heart and die. His choice is complicated by what seem to be haunted dreams of the late Queen Anne Boleyn, a woman whom Cranmer once secretly loved. Anne wants at all costs for Cranmer to remain loyal to the reformed faith, and nearly manages to persuade Cranmer to accept his approaching death when her great rival, the late Queen Katherine of Aragon, intervenes and attempts to sway Cranmer to recant. As the women vie ferociously for Cranmer, the Archbishop has an epiphany about his own life and the shared lot of all people. At the last, Cranmer comes to terms with both his own mortality and his passion for Anne. He will die happily.