Cariou is absolutely first-rate, though, in the long and difficult introspective soliloquy on "ceremony," and in the ensuing prayer ("O God of battles, steel my soldiers' hearts"). And his blunt wooing of the French princess in the final scene is wholly admirable. At the performance I attended, Carious was clearly off form in the noble "Saint Crispian" speech (scene caption, if you can believe it: "The Machine Creates the Believable Lie; Point of No Return"). In the line "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers," he even left out the middle phrase, which is probably the most famous phrase in the entire play.
The scenes involving the amusing low-life cronies Pistol, Bardolph, and Nym go well. Best of the bunch is Michael McGuire, who is (totes, and fires) Pistol. He has a fine comic sense, and spits out his consonants with relish. In his ludicrous run-in with the French soldier, though, the use of the French "moi" destroys Shakespeare's punning with "moy." Still, this performance compares favorably with the splendid Pistol of the late Ian Keith for the Cambridge Drama Festival here in 1956.
William Glover's mustachioed and goateed Exeter is solidly spoken, and Herb Davis' Burgundy performs his performs his peace-making aria sonorously. But there is much more in Fluellen and Gower than Joseph Maher and Barry Corbin have yet found in them.
In a play of this kind, women naturally have to stay out of the fore-ground. But Katharine (Roberta Maxwell), in a pink gown, and Alice (Patricia Elliott), in a pale but one, are delightful as the lady-in-waiting gives an English lesson to her French princess--with no attempt to disguise the scene's bawdy bilingual puns (Henry V is, as a matter of fact, the bawdiest of all the Histories). And Katharine is a charming model of modesty in the wooing scene.
Kristoffer Tabori is most appealing as the young smooth-cheeked sidekick that Pistol inherited from the dead Falstaff. (Whereas Shakespeare designates him simply as "Boy," the program calls him "Davy," through Davy in 2 Henry IV was Justice Shallow's servant and not Falstaff's). When the Boy is left alone with a field of corpses, he slowly wanders about, deeply, shaken and unhardened by his hands. Espying the approach of two enemy French soldiers, he scampers up the jungle-gym. But the soldiers pursue and overtake him, coldly spear him, and depart leaving one more corpse on the silent stage. None of this is specified, but it is deeply affecting.
Yet Kahn's most memorable scene is still to come, when Henry is handed the list of "the names of those their nobles that lie dead." As he recites the long roster, name by name, a score of men gradually come on stage each wearing a ghostly white mask splotched with fresh blood. Finally the King intones the incipit of a Te Deum, and the ghostly choir picks it up in unison and, in the manner of the Living Theatre, moves down-stage to face the audience in a long row, humming and swaying from left to right--an inspired fusion of the quick and the dead. The effect of this scene is shattering and unforgettable. But, as with the traitors' pantomime, Kahn indulges himself too much and keeps the masks on the men right through to the end of the show, including the light-hearted woong scene, thereby diluting the masks' impact.
Although I feel that Khan in this production has jammed a square peg into a round hole, thus damaging the whole, I have to admit that his failure is never less than fascinating.
(Ed. Note--"Henry V" continues' through early September in alternation with "Much Ado About Nothing" and "Hamlet," and will be joined in late July by Chekhov's "The Three Sister." The other productions will be reviewed in subsequent issues. The drive to the picturesque Festival grounds on the Housatonic River takes about two and a half hours via the Massachusetts Turnpike, Interstate 91, and the Connecticut Turnpike to Exit 32 or 31. Performances in the air-conditioned Festival Theatre traditionally tend to begin most promptly at their designated hour. There are free facilities for picnickers on the premises.)