I saw something, and I'm saying something: Five For Fighting (?)

Henry V
directed by Normi Noel
presented by the Actor's Shakespeare Project

The Actor's Shakespeare Project, in its original mission, sought to give the Bard center stage as they presented his words with the “voices, bodies, and imaginations of our actors, audiences and neighborhoods". As the seasons have gone on, and the fledgling company has developed a taste for the addictive nectar of sold-out runs, they have increasingly relied on staging gimmicks a means of hawking old William's wares. This has yielded an uneven crop of shows, ranging from their rough and tumble all-male Titus Andronicus (which will probably remain a highlight of my Shakespeare-viewing) to their text-skimming and wig-swapping six-actor Love's Labour's Lost. As I obligatorily roll my eyes whenever I explain that this production of Henry V is performed with (it even embarrasses me to type it) five actors, after seeing what it has to offer, I must curb my cynicism. In its obvious, pun-like casting, the ASP's production has, in a rather counter-intuitive manner, reconnected the company to their original mission of voices and bodies.

The company returns to what has become usual haunts for them, the basement of the Garage in Harvard Square. I think the space is an inviting one, and although it has its drawbacks (namely a big-ass column smack dab in the center of everything), the minuscule cast of this show work it. When Ken Cheesman asks "Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France?", the cramped, low-ceilinged Garage earns every breath of doubt. Eventually, though, it shows itself to be an ideal clean slate upon which the five players piece together a sweeping story right in front of our eyes.

Skipp Curtiss sets the stage with a splintered wood platform around the Garage's aforementioned center piece, covering the rest of the concrete floor with faded Oriental carpets. This raw simplicity is soon joined by the cast, each bedecked in their own neutral color, making hesitant, wide-eyed entrances. As they shyly congregate under flat light, Ken Cheesman breaks the silence with the famous opening plea ("O for a muse of heavenly fire..."), savoring each phrase before releasing it. The fivesome size up their audience, take in each other, and this deliberate and ritualistic prologue cleanses both actor and audience member alike; preparing them for the flood of language that is to overtake them for the next two and a half hours. For when this prologue is over, the five performers immediately mobilize, embodying all of their roles with a rich commitment which held captive my attention through the ebb and flow of the story.

Henry V picks up where (wait for it) Henry IV leaves off; a little "last time on Henry 90210..." would have been helpful, but Henry V does stand on its own for the most part. The only story that really suffers is the B-plot, which concerns our title character's old lower-class drinking buds and eventually, the death of Falstaff (which means nothing to you if you haven't read Henry IV. Or seen Orson's Shadow, in my case). What the program notes won't tell you is that freshly-crowned Henry V was once Prince Hal, an unwieldy court brat who only recently sobered up to his title in the face of his quickly dying daddy. When the freshly-crowned Hal meets up with his bad-influence bros in the streets, he publicly disowns them. This play picks up in the tentative beginning of Prince Hal (now officially King Henry V)'s reign, as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely counsel Hal to claim his right to rule over France based on a convoluted inheritance involving his great grandfather's mother. The French Dauphin sends a messenger to scoff at Hal's claim (with a diss so weird I first mistook it for an anachronism), and the eager new king decides to invade France. On the opposite end of the social scale are Hal's down and out ex-acquaintances; Bardolph, Pistol, Nym, and the Boy. As Falstaff (their paternal ring-leader) grows closer to death, they squabble over women, and eventually, war. Death is certainly unappealing, but the prospect of free loot quickly exorcises any discussion of mortality. The band decides to enlist all together, and Shakespeare contrasts Hal's conflicted leadership with those most affected by his decisions throughout the rest of the play. Before shipping off to battle, Hal coldly nips a little assassination plot in the bud by executing three scheming Englishman, and the unnerving ease at which he sentences them to death is never forgotten by both the play or the production. These rash streaks of brutality lend a slightly uncomfortable edge to his gung-ho patriotism and the twisted morality is given center stage. Once in France, the English army's speed gains it the unprepared port of Harfleur, and they eventually find their way to the field of Agincourt, where they are met with a French force that outnumbers them five to one (can you say underdog?). Cutting between the French courts and the English war camp, the private discussions of strategy and the open camp fires, Henry V is a patchwork of conversations and characters that accumulate to an engaging portrait of the mess and chaos of war.

The Actor's Shakespeare Project's production, guided with clarity and purpose by Normi Noel, sidesteps any visualization of the actual fighting (except for a brief stylization of the English's conquering of Harfleur), preferring to hover on the outskirts of the great battlefields and in the closed quarters of the courts. Noel and her top-notch cast leave any panoramic details to the Chorus roles, which periodically pop up to key the audience on the literal big picture, and let the scenes stand together as a series of smaller interactions, finding greater illumination through seemingly insignificant encounters. This is a refreshing, and unusually moving, treatment of what is considered to be one of Shakespeare’s more epic histories, as it keeps the focus tightly on the relationships portrayed, giving ample opportunity for the sparse ensemble to show their skill. Seth Powers leads the bunch, lending the title character an appropriate mix of uncertainty, harshness, and hope. He rarely falls into any kind of "headstrong young king" actor-traps, although occasionally finds himself bellowing his lines, which not only makes unintelligible the language he is otherwise so good at delivering, but also leaves him no place to go vocally. He balances Hal's moments of ruthlessness with a sweet and docile Bardolph; the double-casting, which in its abundance, provokes a multitude of thought about the similarities and differences between the characters and events. Ken Cheesman, whose roles include the ruffian Pistol and the ailing French king Charles VI, has a rich, deliberate way with Shakespeare's words, and he imbues all of his stage time with grounded honesty. Paula Langton excels at both swaggering pants roles as well some courtly (and one not-so-courtly) ladies, and has an impressively fluid physicality. Her soldiers are believable, and her Mistress Quickly's farewell to her hubby turns a slightly bawdy scene into an immediate and touching one. The quicksilver Doug Lockwood creates crisp, separate characterizations, and the variety of lords and common folk alike he embodies buffers the more primary turns of his costars with something of substance. Lastly (but certainly not least) is Molly Schreiber, whose quiet, dignified portrayals of the lowly Boy, the French Dauphin, and of the French Princess Katherine all anchor the louder, brasher moments of Hal and of the war in keen observation.

Seth Brodie's costume scheme clothes the Brits in red and the French in blue, keeping the sides clear, but does so with a tasteful eye for details. The cast constantly transforms themselves with an array of brocade capes, sashes, and bonnets almost as "vasty" as the fields of France the play takes place on, and Steven Rosen's lighting and Dewey Dellay's sound design keeps the pace moving and the locations distinct. All of these elements work strongly together to present Shakespeare's story, which Noel and her cast are much more interested in than their own superimposed ideas of it. The puffed-up patriotism that Henry V is largely known for (and Laurence Olivier's film highlighted) is made bitter by the various brutal acts committed by its characters out of both cowardice and rigid honor codes. Seeing an imminent defeat, the French army invades the British camp in the night and kill the page boys guarding the luggage (a gross violation of the standard code of chivalry, we're told). Prince Hal reinforces an order to kill all the French prisoners, and this tit-for-tat bloodletting contrasts with the miracle overthrow of the French army. The end scene takes a turn in the opposite direction as Hal first meets the French Princess, Katherine, and proposes marriage as a union of the two countries. It is a shy and tentative conversation, and a more youthful and clumsy side of Hal is revealed. This somewhat uncomfortable switch from his earlier scenes as a heedless war lord shows Shakespeare's view of Hal is as ambivalent as his view of war.

The greatest virtue, and greatest relief, of this production is that all casting gimmicks aside, Shakespeare's voice is the one most clearly heard. For a lesser company, it seems as if it the temptation would be all too great to slap on some contemporary references to make "clearer" the parallel between Henry V's hesitant leadership and dubious motivations and that of our nation's leaders. The Actor's Shakespeare Project, Normi Noel, and all of the actors trust the audience to continue the thoughts of a leader's responsibility to his public after the performance is over, without being shepherded by an unnecessary "modernization". Shakespeare's Chorus members entrust the audience's imagination with the realization of sweeping battlefields and sieged fortresses. Perhaps similarly, the ASP's Henry V trusts its audience's intelligence to make the leap from prop swords and sashes to more current ravages, fulfilling the opening plea as we eventually see the entire world as one big stage, with our modern-day princes acting and monarchs beholding an ever-swelling scene...