shakespeare, soccer and spin-doctors: an interview with...

Tóth, Noémi: Shakespeare, Soccer and Spin-Doctors:

An Interview with Richard J. Hand1 on staging Henry V. © Noémi Tóth, ELTE BTK: seas3.elte.hu/angolpark

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Shakespeare, Soccer and Spin-Doctors: An Interview with Richard J. Hand1 on staging Henry V.

Noémi Tóth

When in 2002 you were invited to stage a Shakespeare play, why did you choose Henry

V? Was it due to the carefully designed structure as well as the action-packed narrative

of the play, depicting Henry’s path to Agincourt and back?

One of the interesting things

about working in the university

drama department is that though we

have a mixture of ages, we

predominantly have younger

generations. So it struck me that to

do a Shakespeare play quite an apt

choice would be Henry V, because it

is about a young monarch, so I

could map it out with an assortment

of younger performers, even though

we had some mature performers for

some of the roles.

I also had a second reason.

Working in Wales is quite an

interesting environment because one

is acutely aware of regional,

provincial identities, because Wales

1 Richard J. Hand is Professor of Theatre and Drama at the University of Glamorgan, Cardiff, Wales (UK), where he researches and teaches theatre history. His research specialises on horror culture and the adaptation of fiction into performance media. He is also a practising drama translator. In the area of French theatre, his translations include the plays of Victor Hugo and Octave Mirbeau. In November 2002, he directed a contemporary Henry V in Cardiff, at Chapter Arts Centre, one of the UK’s leading centres for the production and presentation of the contemporary arts. The interview was recorded on 4 November, 2009, at the University of Glamorgan.




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is a principality. In the play, there is an ambiguity in Henry V about his Englishness but also

coming to Monmouth, a kind of Welsh identity as well. Because we have students from

Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland, that worked very well.

The structure of the drama also played a significant part in my choice. The play is

immaculately structured with a series of sequences, even though it did demand a large cast. At

the same time, we were able to plan rehearsals quite well: myself and my assistant directors

were working individually with the English court and the French one. And only later on did

we bring them together.

Did the fact that you were commissioned to direct a Shakespeare play have any

significance for you? To what extent is the playwright a cultic figure in the UK?

I think that Shakespeare sometimes has an ambiguous place. In a way, he is the cornerstone

of dramatic culture in Britain, a monolithic figure. At the same time, he can be the source of

radical interpretation. Students who may study Shakespeare often say, “Oh, I would rather

study something else, more modern, something that is less language based.” At the same time,

when I put out the call for auditions to Henry V, we had loads of people who were desperate

to act in Shakespeare. I think a lot depends on production approaches.

How thoroughly had you known the play before the invitation to direct it?

It is one of my favourite Shakespearean plays. I had seen some significant productions like

the Michael Bogdanov one in the 1980s, which alluded to the Falklands war and also the

Kenneth Branagh stage production of the Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as the film

version.

If I was to choose there are plays I like a lot, for example Antony and Cleopatra or King

Lear. However, there may have been problems there because of generational issues, because

to stage Antony and Cleopatra is a fantastic play for middle-aged or older generations. In

King Lear the focus is obviously on the King himself, even though it has a wonderful

generational conflict. However, Henry V seemed to have a kind of totality of drama to it,

which I could focus on with the younger generation. Without it, being an issue were a

problem.




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Do you have a favourite, highly acclaimed Henry V interpretation? The film versions of

Laurence Olivier (1944) and Kenneth Branagh (1990) as well as the famous (or rather

infamous) Michael Bogdanov production of the English Shakespeare Company (1987)

are amongst the best-known ones.

I like different bits of each. I think personally that the best is the RSC production with

Kenneth Branagh, the stage version. Elements of that obviously follow through with the film.

But in the film, because it was directed by Branagh, there was a more sense of sympathy to

the role, whereas in the RSC stage production, he was a slightly harder character, perhaps less

likeable. I really liked the film version as well, but in some ways he is playing it slightly more

charismatically.

Olivier’s is a classic. It is very much a history piece, whenever I watch it I always think of

that context of the Second World War. In a way, it is very much a propaganda piece from its

time and one cannot escape that. Some sequences are great but some, compared to how we

interpret it now, we find quite conservative and stilted.

I find the Bogdanov production thoroughly enjoyable. The only problem I have with it is

that it was somehow a bit obviously made into an anti-war piece, played it very much almost

as a Brechtian power-political piece. Even though it was strong, it perhaps lost some of the

ambiguity and the light and shade that Shakespeare gives us.

Did you study and analyse, perhaps with the students, previous productions and

incorporate anything from them in your direction?

I was very careful – and I always tend to do this as a director – to keep away from other

versions because we were developing our own new production, with its own sense of

integrity. I think it can lead to trouble if people watch other productions and say “Oh, we have

got this in because it is really good”.

As a director, I had one interesting source for the scene before the battle of Agincourt,

when Henry V tries to build up his energies to lead his people into this final battle. I was very

inspired by a Hungarian film, Istvan Szabó’s Colonel Redl.




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There is a scene at the end when Redl has to commit suicide, but he cannot do it. So he

paces up and down, getting faster and faster to build up the energy. I used that scene with the

actor playing Henry V. So he also started pacing, would move faster and faster, to build up

the energy and the nerve to make a plunge into the battle. I suppose, Klaus Maria Brandauer’s

performance is an extraordinary handling of the text and also of physicality. I found that as

the best example of showing the need to try to get adrenalin rushing.

Why do you think the drama is so popular in England?

People often talk about the demise of theatre, and yet the play does continue to be very

strong in Britain. In terms of major shows, the West End remained a significant place,

compared to Broadway where there are very few theatres despite its fame. In the West End of

London, drama continues to be important; it is a major draw for people, who still like the live

experience. This is the case even with television when there are various competitions like The

Sound of Music where they found a new Maria singer. It was a huge success, and after the

show had ended, it was put on stage, which became a major production in London as well as a

national tour, selling out in a lot of places. So, there is a popularity of theatre here, and Henry

V is also seen as an exciting play, which could be made into a thrilling theatrical journey. I

think we are lucky because there is a commitment at the moment from government bodies and

arts councils to support theatre here.

The function of the history plays for the audience in the age of Shakespeare was mainly

educative, and by a living reconstruction of the past the audience was offered some

explanation for the know-hows of history. Do you think anything has changed in this

respect?

That reminds me of when I went to see a production of Henry IV in Berlin, there was a very

thick programme handed out with all the history around it. Before the play started, people had

been spending ages reading through an account of the actual history. There was a sense there

that it would be educative. I think it is less the case in Britain. There is a perception that all

these are true stories, Henry V really did say “Once more onto the breach” or what Richard III

said, “A Kingdom for a horse”, makes sense; but perhaps people do not realize that the true




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details are much more complicated and complex, and do not know how Shakespeare adapted

historical sources for theatrical purpose. I do not think people would necessarily go and see a

Shakespeare play expected to be a history lesson. They rather go for a theatrical experience.

In the case of Richard III, people may assume that he was hunch-backed in real life, but they

take it for granted, and what they go to see is an exciting and hopefully thrilling kind of blood

revenge tragedy.

How long did it take you to get prepared for the direction – from the commission to the

first rehearsal?

The first issue was developing the script. I took a kind of free approach to the script, so I

adapted it. We had to work it out so that the production should be approximately one hundred

minutes long. The director and writer, Steven Berkoff, says about Shakespeare that he is a

block of marble from which you carve a statue you individually want. That is an interesting

way of looking at it, and that was the approach I took. It was essentially a six to eight week

process, in terms of the studio through the opening night. It was quite demanding, but at the

same time it could build up a sense of momentum and interest. If one takes much longer than

that, it can lose its energy and interest for everyone involved.

In the course of the preparation you looked carefully at the rhetoric of the most recent

United Kingdom and United States elections. Why was American rhetoric involved at

all? Did it have any significance that the enemy is France in the drama?

It struck me that it could be an interesting production to do in the context of contemporary

politics and history. The drama is about rhetoric, about steering a nation towards conflict,

which may not have even been necessary, but they were rallying support for that. It also

seemed a remarkable play because some of the Henry V speeches are well-crafted speeches.

That is very reminiscent to contemporary politics because of the speech writers, who write

speeches for our leaders and politicians, who, like actors, learn them and present the

conviction. The other interesting thing was that after the event of 11 September 2001, our

interpretation seemed to take on even greater relevance. That is why in terms of the stage




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design we had the sense of rubble and destruction, with people using that as a platform for

aggressive transformation.

What about the French?

After the events of 11 September, the French were reluctant to engage in conflict in

Afghanistan and also in Iraq. We should all remember that aggressive rhetoric from America

towards France, those sorts of nicknames and jokes about the French. Although they were not

literal enemies, that sense of America and the divisions within the West did seem to spark our

sense of conflict.

Like Bogdanov’s infamous poster ‘Fuck the Frogs!’…

Exactly. Bush called the French cheese-eating surrender monkeys, things like these.

How did you work as a director? To what extent did you get your students involved in

the preparation, making the production a joint venture? How many assistant directors

did you work with?

I had two for this particular production. Victoria Howes, as a postgraduate student studying

Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, was very good at the issues of language. And Bo Channon,

who has a lot of martial arts experience, was a very physical director. He did some great work

on the battle scenes, making them very dynamic, energized. So, with the two of those, we had

language and physicality, and myself a kind of an overview.

I did have a clear concept of what I wanted to do with the production and I carefully

auditioned assistant directors. There were times when Bo worked with some students on

physical sequences, while Vicky would work on language and meaning. Then we put those

things together, and I had an overview looking at both. We wanted the students to find their

way into the character and then we sort of tuned that. The actor playing Henry, for instance,

was very committed to the role, and he had some ideas, which in the end we had to alter

because he was departing from the rest of the ensemble. We did a lot of work with sticks,

broomstick-sized ones, which were used not only as weapons but also as fences or walls. And




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one day he turned up with a metal stick because he wanted to express that as a King, he was

different. However, in our production it was very important that everyone was uniform; that

Henry V was trying to play as a democratic King to his men. He is one amongst them, and

will be on the frontline with them. In the end, the actor came round to it.

The other moment that worked very well with the audiences, was the “Once more onto the

breach” speech. Henry had two advisors, who coached him. They were around him, telling

him what to say. Spin-doctors. We got to call it the spin-doctor scene. The king stood there

quite neutrally, dead panned, while they were giving advice what to say and how to say it.

And he gradually repeated them, and eventually it came to life and he spoke as if it was

spontaneous.

What was the role of the spin-

doctors in the production?

They coordinated moments of

those first committee scenes when

they tried to find justification for

war. It was not Henry’s dream but

that of a number of people at that

table, who were trying to make it

possible and who carried it

through once the decision had

been made. Henry was uncertain,

a blank figure in some ways, and

the details were put onto him by

others. That really referred to an

obsession in contemporary

politics of the time which is about

spin-doctors, about where the

ideas come from. It is not

necessarily the individual

politicians but the nameless




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people who coordinate everything. They brought apart what was significant as well then they

distanced themselves from the events and people alike. They were very important in the first

half, but the second things were in motion, they disappeared, having become invisible.

No director or production can avoid contemporizing Shakespeare to some extent, and

each performance reflects the world view of the director as well as the social and

historical context of its creation. In directing Henry V, you would not only accept this

fact but embraced it too, which is expressed in your choice of using the iconography of

soccer and rugby.

I think, we are in an interesting time and place in terms of national identity. Especially the

time we staged the play, we had a fairly new government, with all commitments to give the

Welsh their own assembly, and Scotland their own parliament. These things had been

unthinkable before, and we were coming through in terms of mood towards devolution and

independence. As far as sports are concerned, rugby people in Wales would really support

anyone as long as it is not England. I think, in football it is slightly different. A team like

Manchester United is emphatically an English team and yet Ryan Giggs, one of their great

players is Welsh. Also sometimes even Wales would support England in football. In rugby,

these complications are not clear-cut, there are certain ambiguities there. That was part of the

fun as well.

In which situations and scenes of the play could you exploit this iconography

exceptionally well?

One interesting point was the issue of shirts. We know them from the games, with the

various motives, which are almost the survival of medieval emblems, and now they can be

seen on the football shirts or badges. There were points where we could really play with the

mixing of the red and white and blue shirts of Wales, England and Scotland, whereas at other

times we could playfully make them group together. In contrast, the French characters were

all dressed in black, and at the battle of Agincourt they had riot shields and truncheons. They

were like police, which also created that kind of emblem because it was like the black police




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uniforms against the mass of players. So we exploited the iconography in the issues of control

and the crowd.

How was the character of Henry V regarded by the students? As a national hero or did

they find him challenging exclusively as a dramatic character?

I am not sure he is a national hero. In our production the essence of regional identities was

very key so we did a lot of work with voices and accents, dialects, Captain Macmorris’s

“What ish my nation”, and I think I was very lucky having such a wide range. We had two

Scottish students with terrific vocal range, so the one became the Irish character while the

other one could become a kind of extremely BBC English at one point, and then very

Southern Scot. We also had some amusing moments. Once we asked the Welsh student to

change from a Welsh rugby shirt into an English one, and he had a real problem with this,

feeling uncomfortable with the idea of putting on an English shirt. Or a Scottish actor who

had to become Irish and he did not mind that. I think this is fascinating because it is a play

about the divisions in Britain. That was our focus. Less about history lesson, less about

Henry. Rather the sense of a regional texture.




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A major issue of the play is the unification of a troubled nation through victory, i.e. by

waging war on France. Is not the price too high?

We always emphasized the cynicism and negativity of war, by staging it partly as a rugby

production. As a contrast, the Chorus was dressed in a Brazil football shirt and he had a

Mohawk punk hairstyle, and in his yellow and green, he was startlingly different from the

white, red, blue and shade green (the Irish character). Once the decision earlier in the play had

been made to claim war on France, the Chorus lead this by opening cans of beer, drinking

lager, in the sense of almost a kind of football hooligan.

The siege of Harfleur was also a key scene. The governor of Harfleur was played by a

woman. She pulled a face of such melancholy, it was a very cruel moment when she admitted

that the city had fallen. While the English and the Welsh troops were chanting and partying,

in a very aggressive male approach, the Governor had a real dignity, but there was something

very heartbroken and painful about that. It felt like a very shallow victory with someone like

that there.




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The other thing that worked similarly well in this respect was the end of the production,

when the Epilogue says that Britain would bleed again. We did that by setting up for the final

tableux Henry with Katherine, families united for a big wedding portrait. They were all there

but what the Chorus did at the last moment was punch Henry and knock him to the ground.

That was the sense of the justice of history perhaps. All that conflict and all of it lead to,

turned into nothing because eventually the power of history defeated Henry, accompanied by

very discordant and nightmarish music. We realized that the Chorus was the winner. He

played with Henry and the

King was finally defeated.

So the Chorus was a key

figure.

He had to coordinate, to

sort of orchestrate things.

He was handing out

weapons and objects to the

various characters, often he

was invisible by the other characters, but he could see. In the traitor sequence, for instance,

when they opened their letters, the Chorus looked over their shoulders, seeing where the

letters were. He played games like that, but the real matter for him was the sense of the puppet

master. At the end the Chorus is like cutting the strings about Henry, and the king falls.

Like Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream?

Exactly. Very playful, also something quite inscrutable about him. The characters come and

go, live and die in the play, but this figure was not part of those rules. He was an outsider in a

way.




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Was violence represented on the English side as well?

Definitely. There was one bit we very carefully worked on, a powerful moment in

Agincourt, where they got hold of one of the French policemen, took his shield and truncheon

away, beat him up and then carried him out of the theatre. Not just off stage but through the

audience, holding him up. It was a horrific image done with incredible power, noise and

energy. There was the sense that it seemed to have gone too far.

The sequence of playful violence between Fluellen and Pistol was also meticulously

choreographed beforehand. We had excellent actors here, a mature Welshman playing

Fluellen with a very strong Welsh accent, and an English younger actor playing Pistol, having

this kind of comedy rivalry. There was a sequence when Pistol did really eat a leek in front of

the audience, who could smell it as he crunched it. The smell was spreading around in the

theatre. I was really very funny.

What challenge did it mean for you as an Englishman to direct a play in Wales with a

team of drama students from Wales, England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain and the USA?

I like to think of myself as transnational. I feel I am an international figure, not being

pretentious hopefully, but I am not sort of obsessed with the particular national identity. I am

actually having great concern about nationalism and think it can be the root of many

problems, so I tend to take a broader view. And even though there were points coming into

focus with the students, I feel that at the end of the day there was a collaboration working on

this production. And that was significant. They were getting on equally well whether they

were Spanish or Scottish or English or Welsh.

It was an international production and we could work in a relaxed atmosphere, thus the

challenge itself was to achieve our goal technically as professionally as possible.

What was the message of the play for the Welsh youth and the audience of the 21st

century?

It was a play about ambiguity and control, so much about the forces of history, which may

have been very different to individual aspiration. We wanted to express that what people think




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they have achieved may in the light and the power of history be rather different. We also

wanted to be cynical about war and wished to emphasize the pain and the corruption of

power.

Henry was seen as expedient embracing various characters when necessary, but distancing

himself at another point. We were influenced here by the Henry V of the Branagh production

with the execution of Bardolph. We cut his throat though only emblematically. That was a

great moment, because we had the other soldiers looking at each other, saying “Oh God, this

is too hard a decision”, while other soldiers were satisfied that Henry had done that.

Would you direct it differently for an English audience?

I am not sure I would direct it much differently. I think even in England one is aware of

issues of Britishness and the complexity, and now it is an interesting time because we have a

Scottish Prime Minister, yet people say that Scotland has got its own parliament, so this kind

of ambiguity can be experienced there. There is still a sense of Britishness there, even though

people in England are perhaps less aware of it than they are in Wales or Scotland: whether

they are in the United Kingdom and what that really means to them. I would probably

emphasize those differences. Besides Henry, I think the Irish, Welsh as well as Scots

characters are extremely important ones, people simply cannot escape them. This is a play

about divisions, so they have to be there. The same issues would be emphasized because that

is what interests me about the play.

In your production, the centre of the stage was dominated by a large, polished oak table,

functioning as the forum of debate in the court scenes. Henry was often off centre,

representing the fragility of his reign and diplomatic position, while the King of France

was always at the head of the table. Why?

The French King was played by a Spanish actress, who had an extraordinary kind of

presence and disdain to others. She had a very strong voice, a slight kind of Castilian Spanish

accent, different to the other characters, which worked really beautifully. She was dressed in

black with very smart jewellery, so we had a sense of wealth to her. She was mostly at the

head of the table, in kind of a control of the figures around her. The Dauphin was played




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wonderfully as an arrogant, annoying little character, always looking to his mum. He often got

overexcited, having his energy for always getting off his seat, and then would be told to sit

down again. The French King was a domineering figure, not moving, only at the end, the

wedding scene when she was forced not to be centre stage. Henry V was often slightly off

centre, he was never such a focal figure.

Understanding Shakespearean language might cause some difficulties, even for an

educated audience. How did you cope with this fact?

I adapted the script because I wanted it to be really accessible, so that the people could

understand it. I cut lines, trimmed and even rephrased things very carefully. I did not want

people to get confused, which always worries me in classical productions. We worked

extremely hard on the actors. We would get them to say lines or speeches and then stopped

and asked them to paraphrase that, to make sure they know what they are saying. I think the

danger is, even in professional Shakespeare you see this sometimes that you could stop them

to ask „You don’t know what you are really saying, do you?” I think actors have to be able to

speak from mind and know what they are saying.

If you were commissioned to stage Henry V again, would you stage it differently?

I think I probably would, though I feel rather proud about our production because I think

we came up with an adaptation that was really accessible. We had sell-out performances in

the theatre, and people really enjoyed it, young and old alike. Even people who were not used

to Shakespeare, not reading it, really liked it because they understood it. They felt moved and

amused, really swept along by. There were four or five performances at Chapter that run sold-

out, and because there was such demand, we staged it again, in the summer. There were

people coming to see it again but also those who had been unable to get a ticket previously.

Nevertheless, I can certainly think of some changes. There are only two or three plays that I

have redirected during my career. I am always taking different approaches, sometimes it is

issues to do with music: I think I would have a different sound for it. I might also approach

the Chorus differently: it might be interesting to have more than one Chorus. Different voices

and different persona; a group of characters who would frame the story. It would probably




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cause some surprise among the members of the audience if suddenly somebody else came in

to start doing the Chorus. The spin-doctor scene worked really very well as a lot of fun, so it

is still tempting to do that, but maybe I would find other ways of presenting certain issues

rather differently. That would be a real challenge for me.

Professor Hand, thank you for the interview.

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