Stratford Festival's ‘King James Bible Play’ offers an strained look into the act of translation

As the texts grew more complex, words in one language rarely corresponded exactly to those in another.

Translation, itself, is an art, a fluid process shaped by translators, their lived experiences and the world around them. 

This idea is central to “The King James Bible Play,” a new, metatheatrical work by Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman that opened Friday at the Stratford Festival’s Studio Theatre. It offers an intriguing look into the act of creation and artistic gestation. But for a play that preaches a lot about the fluidity of translation, “King James,” ironically, is hampered by its own structural rigidity. 

Its first act centres on five men in 1609, working to translate a portion of the New Testament from Greek into English for the ambitious new King James Bible. Huddled together in a dark, candlelit library, they spend hours debating and poring over every word of their translations. 

But in the lulls between their discussions, we also glimpse into their personal lives. They talk about their wives. They debate current events and the merits of theatre. They fret about missed payments from the king for the existing work they’ve done on the translation. Gradually, a central relationship emerges between Sir Henry Savile (Cyrus Lane), the group’s leader, and his teenage son Willie (Steven Hao), who has a strained relationship with his oft-absent father. 

As the act unfolds, we see how each of the men’s lives informs their work. The Bible, Corbeil-Coleman argues, is not a static, immutable text, but one shaped by the men who wrote and translated it. 

But almost as soon as we start to get to know these five individuals, the first act comes to a close. And when we return after intermission, the setting shifts to the present. Gone are the men. Instead, we’re introduced to a new group of five women who — mild spoiler — are a troupe of theatremakers creating the very play about the making of the King James Bible that we see unfold in Act 1. 

Much like the men, they debate and argue. Who they each are, their relationship to the Bible, and their relationship to the words in it all inform their creative practice. 

This juxtaposition of the men from the first act with the women in the second is certainly fascinating. Corbeil-Coleman has constructed a sandbox for exploration — with the questions she poses in the first act re-examined in the second. 

But Corbeil-Coleman’s setup comes across as a bit too neat. Every character in the second act gets their own dramatic monologue. Almost every key moment before intermission has to be explained in the second half.

Her characters, to be clear, are convincingly rounded. But, for me, the grating mechanics of the play’s structure, particularly how its key beats are so obviously plotted out, prevented me from fully connecting with each of the characters. 

By the time we arrive — far too late — at the central relationship in the second act, between theatre director Martie (Deborah Hay) and her daughter Han (Vivien Endicott-Douglas), their story, which parallels that of Sir Henry Savile and his son, feels too deeply buried. 

Director Nina Lee-Aquino stages the play stylishly and, most importantly, prevents the wordy work from feeling too static. In particular, she makes excellent use of Robin Fisher’s set, complete with a balcony. She also draws fine performances from the cast — with especially compelling contributions courtesy of Hay, Endicott-Douglas and Hao. 

But even then, “King James” doesn’t fully cohere as a complete play. As the translators and theatremakers say to each other throughout the show, as they struggle through the act of translation: “Something there.” Indeed, there’s something there at the core of “King James.” But it’s not yet completely realized.