Henry V
In such an aggressive, unreflective, self-congratulatory culture, Henry V can be a dangerous play indeed (just look at Laurence Olivier’s whitewash of Henry in his 1945 propagandistic film adaptation). A superficial reading of the text, which is too often what it gets in our attention-deficited land, would not only justify elevating Reagan or Bush to emperor but grooming Oliver North as heir apparent. Most critics, academics, and theater directors–in other words, those we depend upon to know better–hold Henry aloft as the model Christian king: learned, versed in theology, humble yet courageous, wise, principled, self-sacrificing, and above all inspirational. After all, he overcomes the idle excess of his youthful “wilder days” and, with little except a gift for oratory, leads a severely outnumbered army to victory over France, “the world’s best garden achieved” (just as North, armed with little except a gift for zealotry, overcame the minor hindrances of a Congress and a Constitution to become a senatorial candidate, the world’s best public-relations coup achieved). Even Kenneth Branagh, whose 1989 celluloid melodrama was apparently intended to depict the gruesome realities of war, couldn’t pack in enough slow-motion manly battlefield howls, carefully choreographed disembowelments, and tight-fitting uniforms (war may be hell, but it makes for some great photo opportunities).
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Buckley and Pickering focus their play not on the development of a king but on the environment that corrupts him and the mind-sets that encourage his headstrong belligerence. This production is not about a monarch but about a hostile, unreflective, disturbingly familiar cultural milieu. Buckley and Pickering create a world of grotesque but all-too-recognizable macho posturings and tissue-thin egos. The royal advisers, well-groomed playground bullies, exploit their indecisive king to freely exercise their own militaristic zeal and secure their court positions, just as numerous U.S. policymakers and military officials spent decades inventing the threat of Soviet world domination in order to appropriate federal funds from obedient, well-flattered American presidents. Whether in the French or English camp, these determined opportunists find the slightest insult to their masculine honor as blood-churning as the prospect of doing battle with another nation.
