Henry V (2010)

Henry V is easily one of my most favorite Shakespeare plays. It has comedy, drama, some unforgettable speeches, a bit of romance, and also happens to be the most apologetic play Shakespeare wrote with the chorus constantly asking for forgiveness from the audience for trying to portray so magnificent a tale in such a small space. Stephanie Shine, the artistic director at Seattle Shakespeare, begins the play brilliantly as she, after telling everyone to turn off their cellphones, reminds us of all the wonderful things this play has to offer, and then launching into the prologue herself. "O for a Muse of fire..."

However, it's possible she did this because everything from that point on requires us to try and remember that this play can actually be good.

First off, the time period. Director Russ Banham has unceremoniously dropped Henry V into the 1960s. Why unceremoniously? Simply because there is no point. There is no ounce of effort made to reconcile the fact that everyone is supposed to be English, Welsh or French yet is dressed as an American. No one cared to try and make the field of Agincourt seem like it has importance in the 1960s. Guns are called swords, or, in the most ridiculous attempt to cover up an outdated Shakespearean joke, a horse. In the end it all just seems like an excuse to use the wonderful costumes which accurately portrayed the period despite us never being told when it's supposed to take place.

Second, the direction. Dis. Joint. Ed. Sloppy. Call it what you will, Russ Banham didn't know what he wanted to do with this play. The tagline put on this play was "Ain't war grand?", but the only message I came out of it with was "War happens." We start off with a wonderfully sung "It's The End of the World" that goes on for a bit too long, followed by Ely and the archbishop of Canterbury meeting in this nightclub and talking secretly like conspirators while really they're talking about how awesome the king is now he likes the church and has forsaken his boyish past. At least, in the original script. Either much was cut from this adaptation, or I just lost focus so many times because I was being given nothing to care about that the words just blended together. The Archbishop then passes the time during his meeting with Henry by passing out different colored folders to everyone while talking about why Henry should rightfully be king of France. Everyone, including the audience, is rightfully bored. Then the comic relief comes in! Hooray!....right? Sadly instead of a scene where these bozos chase each other around and threaten to kill each other over a woman (magnificently played by the cross-dressing Jerrick Hoffer) in a quite hilarious way, Banham instead tries to focus on the seriousness of it all and makes the infighting look quite real instead of an almost slapstick jostling among friends. By the time word comes in that Falstaff is sick, I had no idea how I was supposed to feel about it. When the scene ended with everyone leaving and Bardolph shrugging his shoulders like "Oh well! Those silly guys!" I was done. Needless to say the direction remained bad throughout, especially the tasteless and unnecessary slideshow at the end of the play showcasing gruesome images from various wars. "Hooray! Henry V won France and wooed the girl! Unfortunately, he leaves it to his infant son who loses everything and makes England suffer for it. And now, some pictures of why war is bad. The end."

Finally, the actors. While a certain amount of blame can be put on Banham for not putting together a cohesive play, the rest of the blame lays with the actors for bringing almost no passion to anything they did. When you end up with a Three Stooges-like Nym, a hard nosed no nonsense Pistol, a reasonable and friendly Bardolph, and a wailing shrieking Hostess all doing their own thing the blame lies solely with the director for not creating a more cohesive unit. But when the Boy, played by my good friend Patrick Lennon, gives more sadness and authenticity to the death of Falstaff than all the other fools combined...that's a problem with the actors. The only notable exceptions are Tim Hyland's energetic and hilarious Fluellen, Jerrick Hoffer's amazing turn as the Hostess and Alice (the princess of France's handmaiden), Alexandra Tavares as the witty and highly expressive Princess, and the exceedingly well thought out character arcs of the French ambassador Montjoy and hapless Boy given us by Patrick Lennon. Richard Sloniker also does his best as the foolish Dauphin, providing what should be the silly boyish counter to the grown up Henry, but his performance is simply too out of place without that balance.

What about the titular character? I had the honor of working with Evan Whitfield on Three Days of Rain at the Bathhouse Theater, where he gave an amazingly moving performance. As Henry V, however, there is no other way to describe his performance than flat. The Henry V as described to us through the play is a rousing figure who has done a complete 180 from youthful frivolity to inspiring kingliness. With the simple determination to invade France he is able to rouse all of England to war. He is a religious man come from a youth full of sins. But Whitfield's Henry is a far cry from this man. Instead we see him as rather calm, politic, with a darkness to him that he tries to hide (aka when he threatens to kill the women and children of Agincourt). People keep talking about how he's religious, and he keeps giving all the credit to God, but it comes across unearnest and forced. It's almost like he's trying to portray a mixture of Obama and Bush. A man who says some wonderfully inspiring things, but can't connect to any of what he's saying. His most famous speech ("Once more unto the breech dear friends") starts off very low energy, like he's just arrived on the battlefield and is greeting the troops instead of trying to rally them to head back to the front line to drive off the insurmountable odds against them. He stays at roughly that level throughout the entire speech until he inexplicably builds to an angry shout for the last 2 lines. His second famous, about Saint Crispian's day, has no heart to it and sounds more like he's telling his men "Don't worry about it. We're cool. People are going to remember this day because we'll win." No passion, no drive.

That just about describes every other performance not mentioned. No passion. No drive. Everyone is just saying their lines because they have to say them. Knowing how good several of these actors are from other plays (including previous Seattle Shakes' performances), it pained me that so many of them were so blah. I can only hope they try to restage this in the future in the hands of a better director who can instill some passion into what normally is a highly passionate play.

Henry V (2010) gets a 4/10.