Day 11 of 38:38
Henry V
What can I say? This is a great play. Shakespeare is at the height of his poetic prowess. O for a muse of fire. The St. Crispin's speech. Once more into the breech. The delightful French scene. Henry's response to the tennis balls. The Ceremony speech. etc. etc. Shakespeare really knocks this one out of the park
There is something very interesting going on in this play with civil unrest. In the other history plays, the English are embroiled in civil wars. Here they are fighting the French for the entire play, and English-English fighting is relegated to comic subplot. But I think the point is, that it is still there. It may not be the main battle, but it still exists, and even if it exists in funny form, maybe we can't be so quick to assume there will be a happily-ever-after (which of course, there won't be, as we will discover next week).
I was having a discussion with friends recently about the proper staging of the comic subplot -- the Funny Accents Brigade, as we can call them. I think there are four ways to stage these characters:
1. Ignore the accents completely.
2. Have the actors use "authentic" stage accents.
3. Have the actors use exaggerated, silly accents for comic effect.
4. Have the actors use bad accents because you can't be bothered to learn it properly.
Option 1, I think we can dismiss as an outright mistake. One has to have accents because Shakespeare is showing the clash between different areas of England (Great Britain).
Option 4 no one would actually set out to do, of course. It just might happen.
So that leaves us 2 and 3. I was questioning whether Option 3 works only in Great Britain or not. Can you use silly accents in an American production, or would that just read like Option 4? It would be the same situation if we saw a play where a character had a ridiculous Texan accent. An American audience would understand the caricature, but would that false accent mean the same thing to an non-American audience?
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Favorite Female Character:
Katherine (not really much choice here)
Favorite Male Character:
Henry V
Laugh out loud:
Orleans I know him to be valiant.
Constable I was told that by one that knows him better than you.
Orleans What's he?
Constable Marry, he told me so himself, and he said he cared not who knew it.
"That's what she said!":
Orleans Your mistress bears well.
Dauphin Me well, which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress.
How insulting:
Pistol Thou prick-eared cur of Iceland!
Oh, misogyny:
Henry V I will tell thee in French, which I am sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her husband's neck, hardly to be shook off.
Boys are silly:
Boy for indeed three such antics do not amount to a man.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Henry V We shall your tawny ground with your red blood / Discolor.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
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The English-English fighting is not quite correct. Jamy is Scottish, Fluellen Welsh and Macmorris Irish. So they all have accents because English isn't their mother tongue. They all butcher it in their own national manner. On no account may they be described as English. (And Great Britain really didn't exist at the time, even the United Kingdom only came about a century after Shakespeare's death.)
ReplyDeleteEven the French (and the Germans) are closer kin to the English than Jamy, Fluellen and Macmorris. The Anglo-Normans were French - including Henry - France was were they came from. That's why they always were hankering back to France. That's what the entire war was about.
Jamy, Fluellen and Macmorris had no cause to be in France in the first place. This is the irony. It isn't their war - their war is against the English. So the proper accents are crucial, otherwise it's just silly low comedy without any substance.
Yes, you are correct of course. I guess it would be more proper to just refer to it as internal dissent, though the characters are not of one nation, they are still all fighting on the one side.
ReplyDeleteBut thanks for chiming in about the accents. I am actually quite interested in what people think about this. I think I'm also in favor of correct accents, allowing the comedy to come from the text (and the leek-beating) as opposed to from funny voices.