Henry 5

This ‘patriotic’ play presents contradictions in the character, actions and decisions of recently crowned young King Henry.  Director Marion Potts and her cast don’t soften them.  Henry has much to prove.  Despite claims that he has left his ‘wildness’ behind and that the nation is ‘blessed in the change’, Henry has his roistering past to live down and what better way than to go to war... 

Audience laughter is rather knowing as we recognise casuistic and opportunistic rationalisations for bad actions.  Later in the play, there will be invocations of patriotism, heroism and immortality – albeit couched in sublime and stirring poetry – as a cover for cruelty, mayhem and murder...

This Bell Shakespeare production trims the text (amongst other things, reference to the death of Fallstaff is gone) so that it is clearly a play about war and warfare and conquest, and the initially eager (ambitious or credulous?) men who sign up for it. Then, when overwhelming odds, cynicism, and carnage sap the will to fight on, the power of rhetoric and emotion to inspire, persuade and lead on to victory. 

But how to put war on the stage?  Here the Chorus’ opening spiel asks us to Piece out [the players’] imperfections with [our] thoughts... And make imaginary puissance’.  Dr Johnson’s notes on Henry V comment that ‘Shakespeare was fully sensible of the absurdity of showing battles on [sic] the theatre, which indeed is never done but tragedy becomes farce.’  

And yet Marion Potts does put battle on stage.  That is, she and her collaborators – Jethro Woodward’s sound design, Verity Hampson’s lighting and Nigel Poulton’s movement direction – plus horrible black and sticky mud - suggest the battle of Agincourt so clearly and powerfully that the horror under the fine speeches is unmistakeable and the audience is shocked and silent... 

Nevertheless, this superb sequence notwithstanding, Anna Tregloan’s extremely austere – even cold – set design – aluminium and timber scaffolding and platforms - and her dressing the cast in jeans, sneakers, T-shirts and military fatigues – reduces any hint of what we might call ‘spectacle’.  And that throws the burden of the piece firmly on Shakespeare’s text, the words, the rhetoric and the poetry – and thus on the cast.  Here this very well-received production is perhaps slightly less successful. At times, the hurtling pace makes it seem as if the actors are rushing – so that the awkward comedy of, say, disguised Henry’s nighttime visit to the troops gets hurried and rather lost – and it becomes a mere set-up to the magnificent monologue that follows.

Meanwhile, Alex Kirwan gets his Westmoreland just right, and Ella Prince is commanding as Exeter.  Ava Maddon is strong and touching as Boy, less so, perhaps as Katherine - a rather thankless role.  The silly scene in which Katherine ‘learns’ English is included despite the trimmed text.  Jack Halabi’s Dauphin is excellent; with a dominating stage presence, he projects that French bluster and arrogance perfectly, making his defeat all the more humbling.