87. “King Henry V”

Play by William Shakespeare
Performance at the Lessing Theater, Berlin

On September 1st, the Lessing Theater brought us the first performance of Otto Neumann-Hofer's new management. "King Henry V" by Shakespeare was performed. The performance was a theatrical event of the first order. And I will come back to it in the next issue. Today I would just like to say that it was a merit of the new director to present Shakespeare's interesting work, which has not been performed in Berlin for a long time, and that the performance was an exemplary directorial achievement. A remarkable contribution to solving the question: how should Shakespeare be brought to the stage today?

In his book "William Shakespeare", Georg Brandes says that "Henry V" is not one of the poet's best, but one of his most endearing plays. One need only look at the way Shakespeare has drawn the main character of the drama, and one will agree with this judgment. After the second sentence that this king speaks, he already begins to become sympathetic to us; and we have the feeling that we will follow him in sorrow and joy. May he develop before us as a great man: we will rejoice that a charming personality is great; may he perish from his own incapacity: he will earn our pity, but not lose our love. He was not an ascetic as long as he was crown prince; but he immediately bids farewell to frivolous activity and makes strict regal duty his goddess when the crown adorns his head. The poet compels us to love this man. Because he loved him himself. And unmistakably he shows us that he wanted to say: a true king speaks like this: that he is a man like all others, that the firmament appears to him like all others, and that his senses are under the general human conditions.

"Putting aside his ceremonies, he appears in his nakedness only as a man, and though his inclinations take a higher impetus than those of other men, yet when they sink they sink with the same fittich." (Act IV, 1)

This is how this king appears when we look at his heart; if we look at his mind, he is no less important. The Archbishop of Canterbury says of him:

"Only hear him speak of godliness,
And, full of admiration, you will wish
Inwardly do wish the king were prelate;
Hear him negotiate matters of state,
You will believe that he studies only that;
Listen to his war talk, and horror
Battles you hear recited in music.
Bring him to a case of politics,
He will untie the same Gordian knot,
Confidential as his knee-band; when he speaks,
The air, the uncommitted libertine, is silent." (Act I, 1)

I believe that in this Henry, Shakespeare wanted to portray a king of whom he could say: such shall be the head of state under whom I am glad to be an English subject.

The events of the drama are pure history. Without dramatic tension and without an inner driving force that sweeps from scene to scene. Dialogue is used to tell how Heintich sets out to conquer the throne of France, how he achieves his goal after many adventures of war and how he brings the Frankish king's daughter home. All this is richly interspersed with scenes in which Shakespeare's gift for drawing people and portraying the character of entire classes of people is revealed in the most beautiful way. When characters, such as the Valaisan Fluellen, tell us about things that have nothing to do with the progress of the plot, we are happy to listen. For a moment we realize that we are only watching scenes strung together; but we abandon all preconceptions about the drama when we are so captivated against all the rules.

And in another sense Shakespeare shows himself to be an amiable poet in this play. The modesty with which he lets his "Chorus" speak about the relationship between life, action and poetry is a remarkable trait in the most influential poet who ever lived. The Chorus speaks to the audience:

"But forgive me, dear ones,
To the weak, shallow spirit that dared,
To bring upon this unworthy scaffolding
Such great reproach." (Prologue)
and
"Therefore, high and low,
See how unworthiness may mark him, The light demolition of Henry in the night.
Thus to the meeting our scene must fly,
Where we (O shame!) shall disfigure very much With four or five ragged, dirty blades,
Ill-arranged to ridiculous bellows,
The name of Agincourt. But sit and see,
Thinking the true, where its simulacrum stands." (Act IV, 1)

There is great wisdom in such sentences. Great art shows itself the right place in relation to life. Small art all too often wants to elevate itself at the expense of life and assign itself a position that it does not deserve.

"Henry V" is a drama from which we get to know Shakespeare, the man, in all his amiable greatness. In it, he has said what he, as an Englishman, wants a king to be, and he has also told us how he thought about the relationship of his art to life.

Of course, the drama cannot be performed today as it has been handed down as Shakespearean. On September 1, the Lessing Theater delivered a performance that meets all the requirements of modern theatrical art. Of course, art pedants also have a lot to criticize about this performance. And you don't even have to be an art pedant to agree that today we can tolerate more Shakespeare than Dingelstedt left out. I would like to say to the director of the theater: via Dingelstedt back to Shakespeare. And above all: why such monologues as those delivered by the inconsiderable fellow who serves Nym, Bardolph and Pistol?

No matter how bad the criticism is! Some praise it; others write that they can't tell Shakespeare's Henry from Wildenbruch's because they closed their eyes and put their hands over their ears in the Lessing Theater on September 1st. When I read one of the reviews by one of these ragers who covered his ears, I laughed; for I have every respect for the gentlemen who put on the performance on September 1st; but the good Shakespeare is not easy to botch up so badly that one needs to cover one's ears.