Henry V

I ended my visit to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with a wonderful production of Henry V. This completed the Henriad tetralogy that started in 2016 with Richard II and the two parts of Henry IV that I saw last year. It starred the same actor who played Prince Hal in the last two plays, so there was a nice continuity. It was played in the intimate Thomas Theatre, and the staging was extremely spare and the cast was relatively small. It was quite impressive how they were able to convey these vast battles, and people on various sides, with just a hand-full of actors slipping back and forth between parts, and using colorless boxes and crates moved around the stage to very interesting effect. Henry’s big speeches were played much more low-key than the rousing style that one sometime sees, but it just made the words and content come across even more clearly and powerfully. This was a very good show to end my week in Ashland with.
Trailer
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