Shakespeare is perhaps the only playwright who could get away with opening a work by excusing the low budget set design. Most producers would plough on regardless and hope the critics don't notice. In Henry V, however, the Chrous asks our pardon: it is a question of looking at what's there and imagining the rest – a technique also advocated by Imogen Bond, the director of Orange Tree Productions.
Imagination and emotion
The Orange Tree approach is to ‘imitate the action of a tiger’ and pounce right in; since it's a common misconception that Shakespeare cannot be understood by children. ‘I think the fear of it is huge and that comes from being told for years that it's not for you or it's old or boring or difficult in some way.’
‘Sometimes, without words, we understand people's feelings and emotions and intentions, and building that skill is something that drama does really well. We're picking up on all sorts of signals, body language…not just the words people say. If you allow children a bit of time to hear the rhythm, to speak out loud and experience it rather than read it, then they'll innately understand it without needing a dictionary. Shakespeare is a master at putting loads of clues into his writing. The sounds and the rhythm are in there in the verse and give a clue as to how that character is feeling.’
‘We try not to just do the play’, Bond tells me. The theatre is in the round – the audience are close enough to see rainbows refracted in bubble confetti (The Tempest) and close enough to get up on stage. The children can literally have one or two feet in the action if they choose: they are asked to run fun errands and play small roles before and during the show. What's in store for Henry V will be revealed during the rehearsal period, although Bond has a few thoughts brewing.
‘There's so much in the play about using your imagination… Some of our thematic things in the workshop will be about how powerful your imagination is, what it can do. If you imagine something, can you then make it real? That's essentially what the play is doing, [looking at our] collective imagination. We could be anywhere if we choose to be there.’
Child friendly
There are also plenty of thematic jewels to be uncovered from examining how Henry wears his crown and strives to keep hold of it.
‘I think the play is about what it means to be a leader. How do you bring a group of people together and lead them well? I think there are all sorts of problems in our society at the moment relating to what we think about leadership and how we respond to people who are in power – we have lots of problems with our politicians. And while I don't think primary school children will be thinking about what their politicians are doing particularly, they will be affected over the years by the way our society thinks about its leaders.’
Henry V might seem like an unusual choice for Key Stage 2 students. The bit where Fluellen forces Pistol to eat a leek is bound to resonate, but besides that there are some grown up and gritty themes to wrestle with. How do you address that?
‘I think there's this feeling that there are only certain plays that children will like. We've done some plays that you maybe wouldn't think would be suitable for a younger age: The Merchant of Venice… A Winter's Tale’ Or ‘The Big Risk’ and ‘A Right Royal Muddle Up!’ as the children renamed them during the workshops. So how do you encourage children to respond so creatively?
‘I think trusting that children will have a really exciting, amazing, complex response to those words. That they will respond to them. That there isn't a right answer, there are all sorts of ways that those words can be interpreted.’
‘Imagine as a grown up going to see a Shakespeare play and not knowing how it ends. It's hard to imagine that because we sort of know how they end. If you're eight, you don't necessarily’. The best way for students to get to know Shakespeare's work, according to Bond, is ‘on your feet’ and ‘out loud’. One thing's for sure, no ‘breach’ can hold back the indomitable force that is Orange Tree Productions.
To find out more, visit: https://www.orangetreetheatre.co.uk/