Henry V: great cast can't save this tired old tale

The performances in Bard on the Beach's Henry V are excellent. The script, on the other hand is tired, dated, and old. Is it arrogant to critique a master like William Shakespeare? Perhaps. But the fact is that in a canon of nearly fourty plays only a handful are worth doing. The rest could really benefit from innovative make overs and reinterpretations. And unfortunately there isn't enough innovation in this production to save it.
 
The play begins with Henry primed to engage in a war to take over France. In a humorous passage, a clergyman justifies Henry's claim to France's throne due to an absurdly distant ancestor that may have been French. Shortly thereafter, Henry receives a chest of tennis balls, no doubt an intentional insult, from the King of France, and decides to declare war. What follows is lots of rousing speeches about defending god and country and defeating the French. Mixed in are several subplots involving treasonous servants, morally grey soldiers, and tutored aristocrats, none of which seem to matter all that much despite the talented cast's attempts to embody these characters with genuine emotion and human idiosyncrasy.
 
That there is little sense of irony in this production regarding the fact that Henry barely, if at all, has claim to France is astounding. There is a fantastic opportunity here to explore notions of jingoism as well as the nature of propaganda during war time. The modern allusions practically write themselves. Although, I'm not necessarily a proponent of placing Shakespeare plays in arbitrary time periods a larger artistic vision would have a gone a long way with this show. Why do this four hundred year old play now if you're not going to tell us how it's significant? Instead we are given a more or less by the book Shakespeare production which does a lot to highlight how conventional and dated this work is. It's museum theatre at it's finest. No doubt it probably served as great nationalistic propaganda in it's hey day but what does that mean to a contemporary audience? With no attempt at highlighting the contemporary significance Henry V just feels, well, historical.   
 
Although this production of Henry V is short by Shakespeare standards, clocking in at over 2 hours it still feels long. There simply isn't enough story to justify it's length. And the tangential subplots do not help matters. We get to know several louts in Henry's army but there isn't enough depth in these stock characters for the actors to mine and the overall feeling is disappointment in the wasted talent. Henry V is also wildly uneven with the final scene feeling as though it was ripped out of a comedy and pasted on to the end of this otherwise tragic history for no other reason than to have the audience leave grinning despite all the war and blood shed they just witnessed. Moreover, the notion that the Princess of France could be wooed in a mere five minutes and fall in love with the man who murdered her countrymen is ridiculous. Surely a 'master' such as Shakespeare could give us more plausible scenarios.
 
Alessandro Juliani does a fantastic job as Henry and strikes and excellent balance between the regal and the human.  The scene where he disguises himself as a common soldier to gain insight into his army is the highlight of the show. However, the script gives no reason to sympathize with some one so ideologically ridiculous as to arbitrarily declare war. The rest of the cast, especially Andrew McNee, Charlie Gallant, Kevin McNulty and Amber Lewis do great work as well. Shakespeare's heightened language is communicated with clarity, simplicity, and conviction. This is one of the few Shakespeare plays I've seen where I can say I actually understood most of what was being said. Although some of the literary and historical references are and will always be, for scholars only.  No doubt Meg Roe's direction played a huge part in the clarity. Her simple and elegant staging and remarkably seamless scene transitions keep the play going at an excellent pace. Were the script better the show would have been riveting. As well the stylized battle sequences, particularly the storming of Harfleur are excellent. Ritualizing war into a dance was a great innovation. If only that were true of the rest of the production.

Henry V continues at Bard on the Beach. For more information go here.