If you want to watch England's King Henry VIII marry his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, you don't have to take a time machine back to the 16th century. All you have to do is drive your automobile to the Maryland Renaissance Festival in Crownsville.
For the convenience of spectators, the wedding ceremony will be repeated 17 times during the course of the festival, which runs eight consecutive weekends starting next Saturday.
There should be no shortage of wedding guests -- more than 200,000 visitors attend the festival each year. In fact, the Maryland Renaissance Festival is the second largest of the approximately 30 such fairs in the country, according to artistic director Carolyn Spedden.
Each year's array of entertainment includes mini-plays about the royalty of that era. Festival veterans who have seen Henry marry -- and dispose of -- his previous wives will be primed to follow his marital misadventures with wife No. 4.
Henry fell in love with Anne of Cleves based on a flattering portrait of the German princess painted by Hans Holbein. When she was fetched to England, Henry realized to his dismay that she wasn't very fetching.
"Anne is known to history as 'the ugly one,' but personally I think she's the cutest one of the whole bunch," says Paula Peterka, the actress playing Anne.
A 28-year-old computer systems analyst in Alexandria, Va., Ms. Peterka has the advantage of being able to speak German, the only language Anne knew upon her arrival in England. This being a light-hearted Renaissance fair, however, Ms. Peterka's Anne arrives already knowing two words in English: "Drink beer." A certain Master Berlitz gives her a crash course in the rest of our language.
Also tweaking the historical record a bit is the casting in this production. The real Anne is believed to have been fairly tall, but Ms. Peterka stands only 5-foot-3-inches. The actor portraying Henry, Bill Huttel, is an imposing 6-foot-7-inches tall. When the royal couple stands side by side, audiences in Crownsville will probably acknowledge with laughter that this is a marital mismatch.
Defender of Anne's virtues, Ms. Peterka goes on the offensive in describing Henry: "She was 25 and he was pushing 50 when they married. He's overweight, balding and has ulcerating sores on his legs. He's not quite as athletic and handsome as he once was."
She relates that the marriage was "dissolved on grounds of non-consummation" after only six months. Apparently, Anne had never been told the facts of life, and Henry wasn't interested in explaining them to her. But the king remained on good terms with her after the divorce and referred to her as a "sister," thereby entitling her to property and high rank in England.
Mr. Huttel points to Henry's post-divorce treatment of Anne as an example of a gentler side at odds with the historical image of Henry as an ogre. For the 41-year-old Forestville resident, who works as production manager for the convention centers in Ocean City and Salisbury, this will be the sixth consecutive year he has played Henry at the fair.
He's understandably anxious to present Henry's side of the case. Henry's counselors advised him to make a "marriage of defense" to a German princess to counteract an alliance between France and Spain that did not bode well for England. Politics were behind a marriage that in any event didn't have the right personal chemistry to salvage it.
"I'm still not quite sure why he did not like her," the actor muses. "He called her 'the Flanders mare' and said he could not bear to be near her."
RF Having by now dealt with four of Henry's wives in various festival
playlets, Mr. Huttel is asked if his Henry will be taking his fifth wife next year. He demurs by pointing out that "wife No. 5, Catherine Howard, was 15 when she married him, and the charges of adultery placed against her before her beheading were most likely true. I'm not sure we'll ever get around to her, because we're trying to keep this a family show."
If Henry's track record would have a marriage counselor working overtime, others have had better luck in these festival settings. Ms. Peterka, for instance, met her husband, Larry, at a Renaissance fair-related workshop while both were living in California. In the current production, Larry plays a German envoy accompanying Anne. Poor Larry (the envoy) gets to watch his wife marry another guy over and over again in the weeks ahead.
It's not unusual to find husband-and-wife couples among the entertainers at Renaissance fairs. Nor is it unusual for audience members to get into the act by getting married in 16th-century style. Eight to 10 real marriages take place each year at the
Crownsville event, says office manager C. J. Crowe.
The ceremonies are conducted in St. George's Chapel and the receptions are held at the Dragon Inn. Wedding parties are asked to wear Tudor or Elizabethan garb, while their guests are free to wear casual contemporary clothing. Unlike a lower-middle-class wedding of the Renaissance era, when, Ms. Crowe says, "You jumped over a broomstick and that was it," the Crownsville couples opt for more royal trappings.
Ms. Crowe observes that "because they're married on a stage many people at the festival just figure it's part of the show."
Now in its 18th year, the Maryland Renaissance Festival is all about making 16th-century England come alive in late 20th-century Maryland. Much of this is achieved by head scriptwriter Mike Field, who also, incidentally, happens to be married to artistic director Carolyn Spedden.
This year's saga of the marriage of Henry and Anne is actually broken into seven installments, each lasting less than a half-hour, staged at various festival venues throughout the day. The action starts with the arrival of the royal participants when the festival gates open at 10:30 a.m.; it culminates at 5:15 p.m. after the wedding, celebratory jousting and arrest of the counselor who arranged the marriage.
Besides following the daylong action, festival-goers can follow the characters in the "streets" during the intervals between playlets.
And the royal story line is but one of many theatrical events going on simultaneously on various stages and paths at the spacious site.
Mr. Field says the theatrical events, like the festival as a whole, mix historically accurate material with more fanciful touches.
One difficulty in writing plays for fairground presentation, though, is that "the stages are out in the open," he says, "and besides the action on stage there will be vendors hawking pretzels, people pushing strollers and airplanes flying overhead. But that's really not so different from Shakespeare's day, when he had to worry about people cracking hazelnuts in the pit."
Mr. Field adds that the absence of rising curtains and dimming lights to prepare an audience means he must resort to such theatrical devices of Shakespeare's day as trumpet fanfares to get an audience's attention.
While we're trumpeting festival attractions: More than 200 performers will be on hand to entertain at eight stages, three taverns and along village-like streets. There will be puppeteers, magicians, storytellers, mimes, jousting matches, fire eaters, musicians, stilt walkers, jugglers, sword swallowers, a human chess game (in which the pieces are people), a falconry demonstration and assorted knaves and wenches milling about.
Not to mention the 130 artisans offering stained glass, jewelry, brass rubbings, pottery, clothing, leather work, face painting and more.
As far as Renaissance-inspired food goes, there are 1-pound smoked turkey legs big enough to satisfy even Henry VIII's appetite. Other fare includes peasant bread, apple dumplings, ales and mead.
The whole spectacle amounts to one-part history and one-part history-tweaking fun that indulges our fantasized notions about the era.
"People like this period because we think of it as a time when the women were beautiful and the men were --ing," says Ms. Spedden. "In truth, crime was a horrible problem back then and you didn't live long.
"Although we're not a living-history place like Williamsburg, in terms of the entertainment, our performers do a lot of research into what's historically accurate. And, with varying degrees of success, they speak with English accents."
IT'S HISTORY
What: Maryland Renaissance Festival
Where: Crownsville Road, Crownsville
When: Saturdays and Sundays from Aug. 27 to Oct. 16 and Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 5. Hours are 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Tickets: $11.95 for adults, $9.25 for seniors, $4.95 for children ages 7 to 15, free for children under 7. Groups rates are available.
Call: (800) 296-7304 for information.