“KING HENRY THE FIFTH”

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24745, 10 December 1945, Page 3

“KING HENRY THE FIFTH”

PRODUCTION AT COLLEGE LITTLE THEATRE King Henry the "Fifth crowns the cycle of Shakespeare’s chronicle plays that begins with Richard the Second. Though a play famous in its own right, and for noble passages of verse and swift action, its dramatic significance belongs its place in the cycle. It could be thought of as'a heroic orchestral last movement, eloquent and pictorial rather than dramatic in construction; the idea of England dominates, and characters are simple and 1 typical. In spite of short rehearsal and heavy “cuts,” modestly admitted in the programme, Miss Ngaio Marsh’s players at the Canterbury ’ College Drama Society have, sufficiently caught the spirit of the. play, in the production which began a fcrief unadvertised see son at the Little : Theatre on Saturday night. Where there is so little appeal to human complexities and so much depends on the pace of action and the 1 skilful heightening of scene and sentiment, Miss Marsh’s conceptions of Shakespeare production are as little open to question as any producer’s can hope to be. This Henry the Fifth ought to be seen. There is good entertainment in it, and scenes which are both good, entertainment and excellently Shakespearean, notably the comedy between Fluellen (Shailer Weston) and Pistol (William Walsh, whose reappearance and progress were good to see); the wooing of Katharine (Rosemary Clark-Hall) by the King (lan Ainsley), where both managed their broken French and English very nicely; and the King’s Agihcourt speeches. The French court scenes were the least happy; it is doubtful if anything is gained by the forced and stagey guffawing of the French court during the address of the Duke of Exeter, the English envoy. Is this even historically probable? Perhaps, if cleverly done, it might be made to seem so. The Dauphin (Miles Sotting) had the merit of clear speaking, but the silliness of this Prince hardly needs enforcing by such wild eccentricity of manner. John Pocock presented the French King as a senile automaton, but this, though trying at one or two hysterical moments, ‘ was’ plausible enough; Charles VI was in fact going mad.

As before, in the' Drama Society's Shakespeare, one could have wished for more to be said and less to be sung or ranted. There was a good deal more in the author’s lines than was allowed to meet the ear. The King, who is more the hero of a cause and less' a person than any other major Shakespearean figure that comes to mind, was given a robust, intelligent, and always audible performance by Mr Ainsley. But his natural, fairly lowpitched speaking voice, which gave real force and lifelikeness to some passages, too often rose to a chant; and this seemed to infect others, so that lines of real meaning became a mere antiphon of excitement while one waited for something to happen. The dramatic- tension between plain speech and poetry vanishes at the extremes of incantation and mere talk. Shakespeare relies on the Chorus in this play for much essential continuity and explanation, and gives it some magnificent verse. Mary Hopewell's speaking or the Chorus was so accurately phrased, so animated, with such an air of actuality, that a trace of speech-training was easily forgiven Some parts were-taken by members of the Christ’s College Drama Society. From -their work, and from that of •others it seems that there should be : new players for future productions: in this way, every new production helps io roake possible other and better ones t Fine trumpet flourishes for Henry the Fifth were composed by Mr Douglas Lilburn.—A.C.