For those who live where I do and who might be reading this, it might seem even more loserly than usual of 3CM to post on this subject now, because there was a local outdoor production of Willie the Shake's Henry V two months ago, which would have seemed a better time to post on the play. However, there is a good reason for posting about it now, namely this event tomorrow across the pond, which you can listen to via teh internets (i.e. the BBC's iPlayer) if you're so inclined. What's especially of interest is the narrator for the Henry V "Shakespeare Scenario", for those of you who might remember the old BBC series I, Claudius, and the actor who portrayed Caligula there, John Hurt. More below the flip.....
What made this of interest to post here (besides 3CM's lack of imagination in thinking of anything else to cover) was this article from The Guardian (of course), mentioning JH and another actor, Rory Kinnear, announced as late additions to this summer's roster of artists at The Proms in London. What was striking from the article was this quote from JH, after the conductor for the concert, Sir Neville Marriner (90 years young this year, BTW), asked him to be the narrator:
"It's kind of extraordinary. I was a little reticent to begin with because I'm not really a Shakespearean actor. Everyone thinks I am but I've done very little classical work as a professional. It's a very daunting text and the nearer it gets, well it is absolutely terrifying."
It's interesting to read that part about JH admitting that he's "not really a Shakespearean actor", which I don't doubt now that he's said it. But it says a lot about how we Americans perceive British actors. For those of us "cultural elitists" who bother to ponder such matters, I think that we almost automatically assume that if an actor is British, then she or he must, by definition, have done a lot of Shakespeare as part of their professional training and gigs. JH's comment indicates that this is not always the case, so that we do have to be careful about the assumptions that we make about people.
JH does seem to understand the challenge of these particular texts well:
"You've got to do it more in what I call the grand style. The speech to Agincourt - 'Cry for England, Harry and St George' - you've got to go for it because if you don't it's sort of a bleat. It's a very gutsy soundtrack so it's quite a thing to be up against.
"I suspect, once I'm amongst all of the musicians and instruments I will find it inspirational, I am sure of that. And should I be so lucky to be inspired, it will be because of the music. But also, in Henry V I think the Crispin Crispian speech is fantastic; it's a real call to arms and the chorus is fantastic. Wonderful writing and enormously emotive."
He also notes the wartime context of the original Laurence Olivier movie, from 1944:
"The [William] Walton score was originally done during the war and it is interesting to remember that this was a propaganda piece, which was one of the reasons they had the money to do it. But it was a brilliant piece for that and it still works terrifically well.
"I think there are certain things to consider when taking on the part, because Henry V himself is a propaganda animal. He's got everybody all fired up to go to France and so he himself is behaving in exactly the same way as the environment in which the piece was composed.
"It's a piece we instantly associate with the high, romantic, propaganda-fuelled era of wartime, with all the trumpet calls. But I don't think it would benefit us to diagnose the piece much more than that."
One important point about Olivier's film, which the "Shakespeare Scenario" retains, is a cut in the Epilogue from Chorus at the end. In the film (and on
the recording with Christopher Plummer as narrator), this is the close of Chorus' Epilogue:
"Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
Our bending author hath pursued the story,
In little room confining mighty men,
Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England. Fortune made his sword,
By which the world's best garden he achieved,
And of it left his son imperial lord.
Which oft our stage hath shown; and for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take."
This is the full text, where you'll note
the lines that were cut:
"Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
Our bending author hath pursued the story,
In little room confining mighty men,
Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England. Fortune made his sword,
By which the world's best garden he achieved,
And of it left his son imperial lord.
Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crowned King
Of France and England, did this king succeed,
Whose state so many had the managing
That they lost France and made his England bleed,
Which oft our stage hath shown; and for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take."
The key omitted lines, of course, are the 3rd and 4th, especially "they lost France". (Didn't think I'd work in something with a loserly theme, didn't you?) In other words, after all the buildup to the invasion of France, said invasion, etc., as civil strife took over England during the reign of Henry VI, England lost control of France, who regained her sovereignty. So it was all for nothing in the end. To Shakespeare's credit, however, he put that line in at the time, and it evidently wasn't censored. Branagh's 1989 film restored that passage to Chorus (Derek Jacobi, speaking of
I, Claudius), as did the outdoor Shakespeare in Forest Park production. But you'd have to be a pretty attentive theater-goer to catch that, after a long evening with "Once more unto the breach" and all that. That passage will not be included in the concert in London tomorrow afternoon, it's easy to guess.
BTW, if you want to read more about Sir Neville Marriner, one more from you from The Guardian here. On that note, time for the usual SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories of the week......