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Henry V Rehearsal Images
14Jun
By Open Air Theatre
With final rehearsal room run-throughs complete, we welcome our Henry V cast to the Open Air Theatre to begin the on-stage technical rehearsals. Shakespeare's most thrilling of histories combines treachery, romance, comedy, and the battles of Harfleur and Agincourt vividly realised here through John Ross's choreography and Yaron Engler’s drum-based composition.
The story is Henry’s, showing him as king and leader, far removed from his youthful days spent in the Eastcheap taverns, and yet as a man of compassion:
“In our marches through the country, there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none off the French upbraided or abused in disdainful language”
but, when not treated with the same consideration in battle, his response is resolute:
“We’ll cut the throats of those we have, and not man of them that we shall take shall taste our mercy”
His strength is also in motivational speak; when asked if the English can have more men to fight, his response is that “the fewer the men, the greater share of honour”. This speech continues to say that, in far off days, when a soldier shows his battle scars, he will do so with pride, and that “in it shall be remember’d; we few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother”.
Production opens Friday 17 June, book tickets.
