Henry V - Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
Jan 13, 2023 23:49:30 GMT
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londonpostie and cavocado like this
Post by Steve on Jan 13, 2023 23:49:30 GMT
Saw this today at the matinee, and loved this abridged and focused version. Oliver Johnstone is a convincingly emotionally tortured Henry who mutates swiftly into sadism and brutality, shaped by the context of his father's expectations. And in today's matinee, he received magnificent support from Luke Thallon.
Some spoilers follow. . .
What made this particularly palatable, and illuminated Henry's behaviour, was the way Henry's out-of-control emotionalism was juxtaposed against the background context of a cooly knowing and pandering political backdrop, that seeded and facilitated and normalised such outrageous and outlandish behaviour.
Luke Thallon, astonishingly merely standing in for the actor who was supposed to dually play Henry's Uncle and Father, brought such a stately yet understated smoothness to his portrayals of these foundational members of Henry's court, a quiet knowing witness to power and to the abuse of power.
It is Thallon's Henry IV's initial mournful and disappointed reproach of his overeager son, Johnstone's Henry, that here sets in motion young Hal's insecurity about his own potential kingship. It is Thallon's Henry IV's cynical political advice (borrowed from Henry IV Part 2) about "busying giddy minds with foreign quarrels" to distract from homefront failings, that lights the embers of the viciousness that Johnstone's Henry then takes too far. It is Thallon's Henry IV's ghost, in this production, who sits around, legs coolly crossed, calmly observing, yet evidently judging his son's precociously emotional and increasingly violent actions in an endeavour seeded by him, that provokes the worst emotional reactions from his son. This is a show about a son trying to please his withholding father, where pleasing him results in damage to anyone and everyone who gets in Johnstone's Henry's over-emotional orbit.
Thallon has that talent of making Shakespeare's words sound utterly natural and conversational (like Andrew Scott's Hamlet), so the best laugh of the show was when he made the gobbledegook of French royal succession law sound thoroughly explicable, even when it was in fact utterly opaque.
The double act of Johnstone's volcanic Henry, facilitated by Thallon's cool uncle, Exeter, was exceptionally powerful in this production. The two actors were simultaneously symbiotic and dangerously dysfunctional, operating together.
The time travelling end-coda post-Brexit-critique felt both funny in a trivial way, but perhaps too oddly trivial in its comparison of making foreigners fill in paperwork today with executing them so capriciously yesterday.
A sterling support cast, and a wonderful contrasting lead duo, made this Henry V memorable for me today. 4 stars from me.
Some spoilers follow. . .
What made this particularly palatable, and illuminated Henry's behaviour, was the way Henry's out-of-control emotionalism was juxtaposed against the background context of a cooly knowing and pandering political backdrop, that seeded and facilitated and normalised such outrageous and outlandish behaviour.
Luke Thallon, astonishingly merely standing in for the actor who was supposed to dually play Henry's Uncle and Father, brought such a stately yet understated smoothness to his portrayals of these foundational members of Henry's court, a quiet knowing witness to power and to the abuse of power.
It is Thallon's Henry IV's initial mournful and disappointed reproach of his overeager son, Johnstone's Henry, that here sets in motion young Hal's insecurity about his own potential kingship. It is Thallon's Henry IV's cynical political advice (borrowed from Henry IV Part 2) about "busying giddy minds with foreign quarrels" to distract from homefront failings, that lights the embers of the viciousness that Johnstone's Henry then takes too far. It is Thallon's Henry IV's ghost, in this production, who sits around, legs coolly crossed, calmly observing, yet evidently judging his son's precociously emotional and increasingly violent actions in an endeavour seeded by him, that provokes the worst emotional reactions from his son. This is a show about a son trying to please his withholding father, where pleasing him results in damage to anyone and everyone who gets in Johnstone's Henry's over-emotional orbit.
Thallon has that talent of making Shakespeare's words sound utterly natural and conversational (like Andrew Scott's Hamlet), so the best laugh of the show was when he made the gobbledegook of French royal succession law sound thoroughly explicable, even when it was in fact utterly opaque.
The double act of Johnstone's volcanic Henry, facilitated by Thallon's cool uncle, Exeter, was exceptionally powerful in this production. The two actors were simultaneously symbiotic and dangerously dysfunctional, operating together.
The time travelling end-coda post-Brexit-critique felt both funny in a trivial way, but perhaps too oddly trivial in its comparison of making foreigners fill in paperwork today with executing them so capriciously yesterday.
A sterling support cast, and a wonderful contrasting lead duo, made this Henry V memorable for me today. 4 stars from me.
