This year is the 100th
anniversary of the end of World War W1. Tim Carroll, the Shaw Festival’s
Artistic Director, no doubt wanted to mark the occasion and his production of Bernard
Shaw’s O’Flaherty V.C. was a good start. Oh What a Lovely War was
all about the Great War with Canadian content.
He seems to have had another idea. How about a production of
Shakespeare’s Henry V set in a World War I dugout involving Canadian
soldiers?
Seven Canadian soldiers are in the dugout, rifles, gas masks and
equipment at hand and they are rehearsing Henry
V. Scripts in hand, they seem to be going through an early reading. The
Chorus is barely able to read the first line of the opening speech when the
actor playing the Archbishop of Canterbury refuses to continue because he does
not want the part.
Damien Atkins in Henry
V. Photo by David Cooper.
The actors who play the soldiers are professionals but the soldiers who
are rehearsing Henry V are amateurs – and they look it. The seven actors
perform, if I counted them correctly, some 35 roles. Take the Chorus, for
example, he is played by four actors. The rest play several role or more each
and you are challenged to keep track of who is playing what when, if you care
at all.
The second half of the play takes place in a hospital where six beds are
lined up and occupied by the soldiers who have been seriously wounded. We see
crutches, head bandages and evidence of other wounds on the soldiers and four nurses
who take care of them. They continue rehearsing roles in the play with no
particular attention as to whether the characters are men or women. Lines are
muffed, we are told acts and scene numbers and the rehearsal goes on.
The amusing scene with Princess Katherine and her attendant Alice, where
she is trying to learn English is played twice. In the first round Damien
Atkins is Katherine and Kristopher Bowman plays Alice. In the repeat of the
scene, Natasha Mumba plays Katherine and Yanna McIntosh is Alice. I may be
approximately right and I only recite these details to give you an idea of the
mish mash of the production.
Julia Course and
Claire Jullien with Patrick Galligan, Cameron Grant,
Kristopher Bowman and
Damien Atkins in Henry V. Photo by David Cooper.
Gray Powell plays Henry V but he is just an ordinary soldier as are all
the other men and what is the point of putting on the play when the production
has almost nothing to do with Shakespeare’s work? What in the world are we
supposed to get out of the travesty of Shakespeare’s play and what are we to
make of these “amateurs” doing a run through?
The eleven actors who played the Canadian soldiers and nurses on the
Western Front and the roles they rehearsed in Henry V are as follows,
straight from the programme:
Damien Atkins Scroop/Nym/Dauphin/Gloucester/Katherine
Kristopher Bowman Bardolph/Gower/Duke of
Brittany/Alice/Westmorland/French King
Julia Course Williams/Messenger/York/Duke
of Bourbon/Queen Isabel
Patrick Galligan Ambassador/Chorus/Cambridge/Constable/Fluellen/Salisbury/
French
Soldier
Cameron Grant Hostess/Messenger/Chorus/Boy/Governor/Rambures/
Alexander
Court/Montjoy/Westmorland
Claire Jullien Orleans/Gloucester/Duke
of Burgundy
Yanna McIntosh Alice/Chorus/Erpingham/Grandpré/Warwick
Natasha Mumba Katherine/Dauphin/Bates/Bedford/Herald
Gray Powell King
Henry V
Ric Reid Grey/French
King
Graeme Somerville Chorus/Exeter/Pistol
This is the first Shakespeare play that the Shaw Festival has produced and
the choice is a complete mystery considering the approach that Carroll has
taken. There are some jokes that the soldiers make about lines and actions in
the play but they are much funnier for the participants during an actual
rehearsal.
No doubt Tim Carroll and his co-director Kevin Bennett envisioned
something dramatic in their approach to the play but they did not deliver
anything of the kind. A deep disappointment.
_________________
Henry V by William Shakespeare continues in repertory until October 28, 2018 at
the Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. www.shawfest.com.
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