Oh my god this might be the worst Shakespeare take I've seen in a long while.
This is the precursor to a review of Bell Shakespeare's production of Henry 5, by Jonathan Ricketson in the Australian Book Review (the rest is behind a paywall so I can't comment).
"Is Henry V Shakespeare’s worst play?
No, that unhappy honour goes to The Taming of the Shrew, an anti-comedy that grows more rancid with each passing year. Henry V is far from the Bard’s worst, but it is a second-rate work that is poorly suited to the present day.
Fundamentally, the final play in Shakespeare’s second history cycle is about the glories of militarism. It follows an arrogant and thin-skinned Plantagenet monarch who, smarting from personal insult, launches an invasion of France. The king believes there are ancestral territorial claims that justify his campaign. He is seething with paranoia and surrounded by a nest of viperous advisors..."
I saw the show just tonight, and while we were discussing the show, we got curious what the reviews were saying.
Now, I'm not a hardcore purist; I want people to enjoy Shakespeare and love it as much as I do, but this wasn't my favourite interpretation. I've been to quite a few Bell productions and thoroughly enjoyed myself, but the show was severely abridged, and I felt like it was a bit sanitised and suffered for the omittances.
Still, a large proportion of the cast was making their debut, the sound design was visceral and evocative, the movement and fight choreography was entrancing and affecting, and the set and costume design was brutalist and dynamic (I loved the wooden boundary - painted grey to match the sterile, monochromatic theme - as a lovely reference to the "wooden O" mentioned by the chorus). I very much enjoyed the tinges of Brecht in the typed captions and subtitles on a screen suspended above the stage, the direct address and doubling of roles, and the performances were very good.
I missed Fluellen, the whole subplot with Henry's old drinking buddies from Henry IV part 2, who he orders executed after they are caught looting, and further context from the previous installments, such as Harry's father's deathbed advice to start a campaign overseas to stave off further civil war. And I thought Henry was too nice, not ruthless and morally ambiguous enough, though J K Kazzi conveys Henry's magnetism and charisma well. But the looter executed is not identified, though Henry gets a bit choked up when he sees the body - represented by a punching bag - and he does not order the execution.
And the whole thing was 110 minutes with no intermission (I hate this trend, unless a play is short by design; I will happily watch a 2 and a half hour play with a twenty or thirty minute interval).
The reviews I saw with a quick google were overwhelmingly positive, and while I might not entirely agree with them, I think it's great for the cast and for more people to enjoy Shakespeare.
This one pissed me off, even with only the first two paragraphs.
Firstly, who thinks Henry V is Shakespeare's worst play? It's widely known for some of Shakespeare's best and most well known speeches, and is one of his most popular histories.
I know some people interpret it as overly patriotic and glorifying war, but Shakespeare is rarely one dimensional, and many interpretations can be made. That said, my take is that its ambiguity and many facets (and the same of Henry V the character) are a large part of its genius. Henry is both unsympathetic and deeply likeable at times, and I find the duality deeply engaging.
Secondly, The Taming of The Shrew is far from Shakespeare's worst, though whether you take its meaning straight on or not might dictate whether you like it, but the writing is very good regardless of if you agree with the argument it is assumed to make (Shakespeare's dead, we can't know) or not. You can enjoy a work while disagreeing with its premise. I dislike the overly sexualised treatment of Princess Leia in the Star Wats original trilogy, but still love the movies.
I have already stated my opinion regarding Henry V being "second rate" (what are you on, man?), but as for unsuitable for modern audiences, well, it's up for interpretation, though personally, I don't think so. I think it can be a really interesting exploration of perceptions of heroism and evil, and of the different standards of morality applied to people of varying status, as well as the cost of personal growth - for the better or worse.
I won't say that Ricketson's interpretation is wrong, because there is no right or wrong interpretation, but I do disagree with it.
That's fine, we all bring our own perspectives and ideas to a piece of work, and disagreements on this are both normal and good.
This is... uncomfortably certain though, phrases as rigidly as if it were incontrovertible fact, and the sole truth.
I believe I have expressed something of my own interpretation above; as it is currently after 1.00 am, and I don't have my copy of the play with me, I won't expand on it now. There is plenty of Shakespeare analysis out there already, and I'm too tired to add anything coherent to the corpus now, so I'm sure anyone still reading will survive.
This did start out a bit of a rant, but I do try to be kind and fair, even when I disagree with someone, please let me know if I've not succeeded this time, and I'll try to remedy my error.
Again, I did enjoy Bell Shakespeare's staging of Henry V, just had some issues with it.
