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Henry V review – a deeply thoughtful study of war's victors and victims

Ustinov, Bath
Elizabeth Freestone’s highly kinetic production matches an often vulnerable Henry with a wonderfully punky Katharine

Henry V is a king in name only at the beginning of Elizabeth Freestone’s highly kinetic production at the Ustinov studio. He tears off his shirt and tie to reveal himself in full party-boy mode, surrounded by drinking pals. They drink and dance to the Ordinary Boys song Boys Will Be Boys before Henry collapses to the ground, sleeping off his hangover in his clothes. When his kinsmen and advisers arrive to discuss war with France, they have to scoop him up off the floor first. Canterbury describes “the Gordian knot of it” while tying Henry’s tie around his neck so he can receive the French embassy. This is a liminal king, caught on the threshold of adulthood.

The diplomatic and military demands of war compel him to set aside the past. Ben Hall captures Henry’s transformation with one of his own: at first, he seems a man unhappy with his own height, stooping a little, his hands held awkwardly as he tries to occupy the space and title allotted to him. He seems to expand upwards to become the warrior king of Harfleur and Agincourt. Now he is a man who can pass a death sentence on an old drinking friend for looting a church, making no exception for their past intimacy. His eyes fill with tears as he watches Bardolph strangled. He wipes them away to receive the French embassy, the mask of kingship returning to cover the vulnerability of the man beneath. Hall takes on Henry’s most famous monologue with conviction and energy, punching through “Once more unto the breach, dear friends,” as the stage fills with billowing dust and the chaos of battle ensues.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2KwGDL2
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