Jay O. Sanders, Elijah Jones, and Dakin Matthews in Henry IV. Photo: Gerry Goodstein

Henry IV at Theatre for a New Audience’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center is as teeming with life as its famous central figure, Sir John Falstaff. Long though it is, the show captures and celebrates the excellence of Shakespeare at very near the height of his powers.

Henry IV, Part One is in fact a sleeper pick for Shakespeare’s greatest play. It captures many of the playwright’s master themes—ambition, power, deception, community, warring powerful forces; its structure moves nimbly between the high poetry of weighty court discussions and the prosaic banter at taverns and bawdy houses. It introduces us to the complex, beguiling Prince Hal, who will mature into the vaunted King Henry V, as well as his companion Jack Falstaff, overstuffed with life, pleasure, and wit.

Sadly, the play’s often—and justifiably—neglected, unwieldy stepbrother, Henry IV, Part Two, fails to rise to the transcendent heights of Part One. The sequel continues the story of Hal’s ascent to the throne, but other than rounding out the plot, the play feels in many ways forced. Falstaff is melancholy and his warm relationship with Hal grows strained. Instead of scenes of pitched battle, we get only a connived military trick. The life and urgency that fuel Part One are consistently lacking in Part Two.

Still, there is no denying that Part One ends without resolution, something which—to its credit—Part Two supplies.

Enter the smart, effective adaptation by Dakin Matthews now running at Brooklyn’s Theatre for a New Audience. Matthews’s version—last seen in New York in 2003, featuring a cast studded with stars like Kevin Kline, Ethan Hawke, and Audra McDonald—combines the plays into a single four-hour production, wisely putting most of its eggs in the Part One basket. The first two of the show’s three acts are Part One essentially in its entirety—with some light trimming, and a few Part Two scenes transposed—and the third act is a quick and utilitarian march through a heavily edited Part Two.

Under the direction of Eric Tucker, the hours flow with engrossing ease. The excellent cast finds the essence of their characters, which Tucker emphasizes with the production’s intimacy. Tucker is best known as the artistic director of Bedlam, a company that consistently explores new dimensions of theatricality, often reinvigorating classic works in inventive ways. This show is not under the Bedlam banner, but Tucker being Tucker, the production feels Bedlamesque: we are in the round, and offstage actors are frequently fully visible in or behind the audience. Actors often double or triple (or more!) in roles, signaling the change with a slight costume adjustment or voice inflection. Scenery is sparse and simply functional. Other theatrical elements are often playful and self-referential. The effect throughout is to remind audiences that bringing this play to life is a communal endeavor, one which demands audience buy-in as much as it relies on strong performances.

And strong performances abound here. Elijah Jones’s Prince Hal is appropriately full of defiant vigor, at all times cocky in a way that captures Hal’s struggle to manage his own ego. Matthews himself plays King Henry, enlivening the weary king with a constant sense of righteous indignation.

But of course any Henry IV turns ultimately on the strength of its Falstaff, and here Jay O. Sanders is resplendent. “Give me life!” cries the fat knight, and Sanders fills the character with just the life he craves. This Falstaff is nimble with his words and stalwart in his convictions, fully earning himself the place he craves at the center of everybody’s attention. The show’s closing moments are heartbreaking not only because Sanders performs them so deftly, but also because he has spent the previous four hours making us so enamored with Falstaff.

Functionally, this show is a fine opportunity to see the entire narrative of Henry IV without having to experience the slog of a full Part Two. But more important, this production is an excellent rendition of one of Shakespeare’s finest achievements. The playwright invested significant energy in telling the story of Hal’s development into the great, conquering Henry V, and this Henry IV does fine work to capture and invigorate that story.