A few years back I was in Dublin, and I’d heard of a production of Macbeth that was supposed to be very edgy and getting fantastic reviews. I booked tickets and was subjected to probably the worst bit of Shakespeare, scratch that, the worst bit of theatre I’ve ever seen. Well, let’s be kind - the set design was rather clever. I won’t sport with you by giving a play by play of that train-wreck, but the witches actually rapped out ‘Double... double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.’

The Dublin debacle had an ominous beginning - the director stood up in front of the curtain and gave a rather lengthy discussion on how to be a good audience, along with instructions for how to listen to Shakespeare, advising us not to worry if we don’t understand all the words, etc. etc. Looking around me, I realized I’d booked tickets to the wrong production, and this was a travelling troupe that specialized in bringing Shakespeare to schools - apparently so that when students complained about having to read Shakespeare the teacher could then threaten them with having to actually watch it. I left the show swearing that if I was ever subjected to a lecture at the beginning of a performance again, I would get up and run for the exits, never looking back.

So you can perhaps imagine my dismay when Stephanie Shine, Artistic Director of the Seattle Shakespeare Company, after the obligatory announcements and requests to turn off all cell phones, launched into a description of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. The Prologue in Henry V, you see, begs us to “pardon, gentles all, the flat unraised spirits that hath dared, on this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth so great an object. Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France? Or may we cram within this wooden O the very casques that did afright the air at Agincourt?” My blood began to boil as I imagined that the director felt we simply wouldn’t get it if we weren’t subjected to a history lesson first, and I was about ready to make my dash for the door.

Well, my discretion got the better part of my valor, and I’m mighty glad it did, as it soon dawned on me what Shine was really doing. By asking us to imagine what the Globe might have been like, Shine was starting the Prologue early, gently waking up our minds to the power of mere words to fuel our imagination. Shine continued on to give a brilliant performance as the Chorus, filling her soliloquies with a sense of wonder at the magic of words. I’ve long appreciated the poetry of the Chorus in Henry V, but this was the first time I’ve been moved by it.

Some of the credit for the success of the Chorus belongs to director Russ Banham. Whether portrayed (even used) as a piece of nationalistic propaganda, like in Olivier’s film, or presented as an anti-war commentary, like Branagh’s, Henry V is often liberally sprinkled with magnificent fight scenes. Here, save for a humorous bit with a Welshman and some leeks, there wasn’t a single fight on stage. Whatever else one might think of Branagh’s film, it strikes one as ridiculous to see Chorus striding through the fields of Agincourt, asking us to imagine the unshowable while behind and around him the film is doing a righteous job of showing everything. In this leaner production, Chorus becomes a necessary and valuable part of the production.

King Henry himself, played by Evan Whitfield, came across more as a politician than the warrior-king I’m used to: the great man giving great speeches. We never see him with the sweat and grime of war upon him. (The real Henry V was no REMF: at 16, commanding troops in Wales, Prince Hal continued to fight after taking an arrow six inches into his face, just to the left of his nose.) But even though Banham’s director’s notes inform us that he reads Henry V as an anti-war satire, Whitfield delivers Henry’s speeches in a stirring manner, completely without irony. I think on some level, in the Obama-era, the arts community in general (along with a sizeable slice of America) has some renewed faith in the idea of the great man and his great speeches.

Shakespeare’s history plays were written and staged out of chronological order, so he could safely assume that his audience knew that, despite the triumphant success of Henry V, everything goes to hell shortly after with the War of the Roses, and so the last Chorus soliloquy provides a transition from the victory over France to the loss of everything achieved. Feeling a bit like the end of Das Boot, it’s hard not to read that as a bit of an anti-climactic nod to the futility of war, and SSC punctuated that moment with disturbing war footage and one of those musical cues that immediately bring Vietnam to mind. As the play was set in the early 1960s, our modern audience could reasonably be expected to know that Vietnam is up next, so the parallel was clever.

Here in 2010, when we see lawyers and churchmen present a brief describing how Henry V has a legitimate claim to the throne of France based on a bit of legal wrangling over ancient laws, it really doesn’t take much work to get modern audiences asking ourselves, “Yeah and where ARE those WMDs?” But there’s some buried irony that modern audiences might miss. Shakespeare’s audiences would have already heard Richard, Duke of York justify his attempt at Henry VI’s crown using the exact same logic. If we grant that Henry V has a legitimate claim to the French throne based on succession through the female line, then Henry shouldn’t be King of England at all!

Now comes the time in my review when I’m terribly unfair and single out a few excellent performances while ignoring others: David S. Hogan’s Bedford was a pleasantly understated performance filled with a quiet dignity I found compelling. With all the cross-dressing and gender-blind casting I’ve seen, Jerick Hoffer’s Mistress Quickly might be the first time I’ve seen an experienced drag performer at work, and that was fun, but Jerick’s performance out of drag, as an effeminate Alice, was hilarious and scene stealing (in a good way). The scenes in French between Alice and Alexandra Tavares’ Katherine were the funniest in the play and well-delivered.

My tech nod goes to costume designer Pete Rush: the American, I mean British uniforms had an authentic feel, Katherine’s dress in Act 5 would have made Jackie O proud, and the French uniforms looked like I’d image the Canadian Mounties might look, if they ever turned Communist.

The Seattle Shakespeare Company’s Henry V presents a fresh look at a well-loved classic. The show runs through May 9th.

[Photos by John Ulman. James Lapan as Canterbury, Evan Whitefield as Henry V, and David S. Hogan as Bedford. Alexandra Tavares as Katherine and Jerick Hoffer as Alice. James Lapan as Gower, Tim Hyland as Fluellen, Russell Hodgkinson as Pistol.]

Apr 26, 2010 | permalink