This was an epic version of Henry V, Henry VI and Richard III by the superb Ivo van Hove exploring kingship, power and leadership through a modern lens. It was very freely adapted – with the focus almost solely on the kings and their advisers with Henry V visiting the troops on the eve of Agincourt as the only scene outside of the world of political power. And this was the only scene in the entire performance when we saw ‘ordinary’ people, as opposed to the movers and power-brokers of the world. And unless one knew the play intimately, they renamed nameless. Textually it was very free, with the he English subtitles, for the most part either recalling the Shakespeare (on a very few occasions the original was entirely used but when this happened it was admirably imaginatively staged) or seemed to be a modern version of a translation of the original into Dutch. But it worked well.
There was essentially one set for the entire performance – a bunker-like setting with screens and modern communications and a dominant very large screen on the back wall. Leading off stage was a wide completely blank white room that led into circuitous corridors and which was periodically used (very effectively) for essential scenes outside of the bunker e.g. the eve of Agincourt and, repeatedly and very effectively, for deathbed scenes of =the succession of kings as if lying on hospital trolley beds.
There was live, invariably harshly dissonant, almost entirely brass music played from a balcony at the back on stage left. It was a fine idea to use almost exclusively brass with its associations with pomp and royal splendor. Likewise just a few essential props were used throughout like the ermine cape and crown for kingship and coronation.
In Henry V, the modern setting and accoutrements were particularly effectively used early on with ‘Once more…’ which started as a read PR release straight to camera but which Henry then put down and spoke, directly and passionately, from the heart. This was very powerful, as was the spittle-flying extreme close-up performance of his threats to the inhabitants of Harfleur. The technology also worked very well with the onscreen depiction of the battle of Agincourt which, for the first time, allowed me to get a sense of how it was actually won and the sort of terrain on which it took place. As ever, the Herald Montjoy (here a female career diplomat), was a most endearing and appealing character although the relationship between him/her and Henry at the end was not quite as touching and moving as I recall it being in the Branagh film. And the scene of the wooing of Katherine was very entertainingly doen – and one of the few scenes, I think, that was not heavily cut and adapted.
Once Henry VI started, the opening of Henry V with the slow procession to camera of the king-elect followed by a line of advisors forming a line up the centre of the stage, was seen to be a standard opening, for all parts, very well suggesting the steady inevitability of the succession of kings and with the same actors being used, the point that while the King changes, nothing else much does – the sort of people who are the movers and shakers for one King remain in that role, even though the faces may change. Here, and previously and subsequently, the procession was preceded by a brief scene in the white corridors of the dead or dying King with his successor son. Henry VI, not often the most engaging of the history plays, was here an equal dramatic partner to what preceded and followed these plays (or versions of them), Seeing them in continuous sequence really does bring out the best in them - if one has the 4 plus hours available of course.
The Henry VI trilogy passed surprisingly rapidly – it was an impressive performance of an unimpressive character – and it brought us rapidly to Richard III Never have bare white corridors with dry ice swirling on the floor, seemed so grimly sinister as when Richard was stalking them prior to his coronation.
I found the performance of Richard gripping and thoughtful. His first appearance, in the white corridors, killing someone (not sure who meant to be tbh) was wonderfully grim, with him stuffing paper in the victim’s mouth and leaving him with his inverted glasses on his face. Richard’s physical deformity was minimal – a slight limp and strawberry birthmarks on one side of the face, which, effectively and intriguingly, were completely hidden on one profile view which gave a very effective visual enactment of how his deceptiveness could be unrecognized by so many until it was too late. Very Two Face!
Richard’s narcissism was well established by his constant use of a mirror and delivering ‘now is the winter…’ in this way, was particularly effective I felt. His increasing confidence was also reflected in his movement, being slower and more discreet at the start and then, as he approached and finally gained power he became more vigorous and active until, at the very end, hope and reason lost, he was careering wildly, horse-like, round and round the now empty stage. The humor was apparent elsewhere too, where Richard tells his brother that Clarence has been killed was preceded by a marvelously funny section where all four main protagonists sat around, very distanced, around a large coffee table, relishing a cheesecake (blood red!) with acres of painful silence between them. Great fun! Likewise, his speech to the Mayor of London was very entertainingly done, with much of it as a practice which somehow managed then to morph into the actual event itself (although we saw no-one other than Richard and Buckingham. Even the scene of the ‘cursing Queens’ – so often dreadfully dully rhetorical – had vigour and drive. And by this time, the set had become almost bare, with solid walls all around, prison-like and only the metronome (there from the start downstage front centre, I believe although it was not always visible in the relay) ticking away relentlessly.
The updating worked very well with some details, particularly the use of syringes as the chosen method of execution – particularly when Richard offered Lady Anne a syringe to kill him during his wooing, rather than the textually specified sword/dagger, this being far more dramatically plausible as it would have been so much easier to do.
By the end, Richard is speaking only to himself on a vast screen and then, after this death, the coronation staging, ending as we began.
So, a wonderful and gripping 4 hours plus. I do hope it will be available for streaming at some time as it really is worth seeing.