Rulers long have known that prosecuting a war against a foreign enemy is a helpful way of shifting focus from domestic or familial strife. That accusation gets made by one side or another about most global conflicts and it’s one way of looking at “Henry V,” the history play by William Shakespeare that opened Friday on Navy Pier as the first production to be conceived by Edward Hall as the new artistic director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
The two parts of “Henry IV” are consumed by the strife between the king and his profligate son, Hal, the Prince Harry of his day, and with the rumblings of the Mortimers, who think they have a better claim to the throne than the dominant Lancastrians. (They found a scribe sympathetic to their cause in the Bard of Stratford of Avon; as the British say, Shakespeare knew upon which side his bread was buttered.) But in “Henry V,” the mature Hal puts such matters behind him and unifies the domestically rebellious by invading France, partly pushing a dubious, lineage-based argument (aren’t they all?) and partly by persuading his subjects that the Dauphin’s disrespectful gift of tennis balls was all the excuse needed.
Shakespeare did not make battlefield endorsements like Taylor Swift and his studied self-effacement needs no further elucidation here. But there can be no doubt that Shakespeare put some eloquent words in the ruler’s mouth. The play is the prototype for Hollywood epics about heroic leaders who do not shirk the bloody risks of battle themselves, from “Braveheart” to “Game of Thrones.” The St. Crispin’s Day Speech (“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers”) has been admired by generations of warriors for how well it articulates the veterans’ bond.
George Washington quoted from it in his general order to his troops in 1783. Laurence Olivier used it to gin up British spirits in a movie Winston Churchill wanted released in World War II. And University of Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh spoke it at a rally to celebrate the 2023 Wolverines’ national championship, even replacing the name of King Harry with that of his storied quarterback, J.J. McCarthy.
Hall and his designers, led by Michael Pavelka, want nothing to do with that patriotic, rah-rah stuff. At least, I think that’s the case; it’s not entirely clear in a highly creative, pulsing, never-dull-for-a-second production that is filled with interesting theatrical ideas and zestful performances from a deeply committed ensemble cast but suffers some from a lack of clarity, and characters who never seem to change with the circumstances as all of us, it fact, do.
Hall’s version of the British ruling classes is far from heroic. Indeed, the Dukes and the knights and the whatnots blend with regular soldiers who have one foot in the play’s period and another in the British soccer hooligan-punk culture, circa 1980 (they are partial to “London Calling” by The Clash). We are made aware of the horrors not just of war but of regular life as Henry, played by Elijah Jones, kills off, well, either dissenters or traitors, depending on your point of view. The altercation with France similarly is rooted in ego and pique: the Dauphin (Alejandra Escalante) is not making a serious statement and Henry’s response is similarly ungrounded in the stuff that should provoke war.
All of that is fair enough and au fait with potential authorial intent. But once we’re in sight of Agincourt, Henry turns into a great battlefield leader, motivating his men and expressing a desire for mercy toward his captors. Shakespeare certainly stacks the deck (the Globe Theatre sought its profits in London, not Paris), but if you have the hero as a mostly unsympathetic figure, which is the case here, you end up fighting the words. Henry’s interest in Katherine, Princess of France (Courtney Rikki Green) is written to be at least in part a conciliatory gesture. (I remember a Stratford Festival production of this play by Des McAnuff expanding this Anglo-French unification idea into a veneration of Canada!) Here it doesn’t even so much feel like an extension of conquest, which is another way to look at it, as a desperate solution from a worn-out soldier, looking for something to take home. And you’re not clear what Katherine thinks, either, because much of her limited stage time gets taken up with jokes about the French language. It’s a hole in the show.
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There’s a stand-out performance here from Rachel Crowl in multiple roles, each very different from the other. But the best moments of this show involve, for me, the late appearances of Sean Fortunato, as an emotionally wrecked King of France, and the character of Mountjoy (the superb Jaylon Muchison), here a Lapin-like figure who knows more than he lets on about the potential fate of those following and opposing Henry.
Jones plays the title character as a man in a fog who cannot find his way out (even with Katherine). It’s a fevered performance, and compelling at times, but the king seems the same at the end as when he began.
A hard-eyed look at Hal, I might add, is in sync with previous Chicago Shakespeare explorations; Barbara Gaines, the previous artistic director, was similarly uncharmed. Ha! No Kenneth Branagh-like silkiness for Hal here. This is Chicago, a city of reinvention, not a place designed to smooth the tracks of the well-connected.
Still.
War does change and equalize all who fight therein; “Henry V” knows that. So does Henry V himself. That’s a missing piece in what’s nonetheless a provocative debut for Hall.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “Henry V” (3 stars)
When: Through Oct. 6
Where: Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier
Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Tickets: $73-$92 at 312-595-5600 and www.chicagoshakes.com
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