Don’t miss Island Stage Left’s ‘Henry V’

Please don’t let your summer go by without seeing Island Stage Left’s “Henry V.” I went last weekend only because I never miss a Stage Left production. I had never read nor seen nor had any special desire to see this particular play because I had assumed it would be some kind of historical exercise about events which would have little relevance in today’s world. Frankly, I assumed it would be kind of a yawner. I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

August 3, 2010 3:09 pm

Please don’t let your summer go by without seeing Island Stage Left’s “Henry V.”

I went last weekend only because I never miss a Stage Left production. I had never read nor seen nor had any special desire to see this particular play because I had assumed it would be some kind of historical exercise about events which would have little relevance in today’s world. Frankly, I assumed it would be kind of a yawner.

I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

It was stirring, hilarious and thought-provoking, and how could I have been so dumb not to have realized that, Shakespeare being Shakespeare, the play would be about human beings more than about events. There are some wonderful directorial choices in Stage Left’s version that contribute to a feeling of the urgency and immediacy of the battlefield, and give resonance to this exploration of men at war, leadership and the choices it entails, loyalty and betrayal, scoundrels and heroes and the similarities between us all.

Don’t miss it!

Brenda Beckett
Friday Harbor