Each theatre director approaches the role differently. For Nicholas Hytner there is the added complication that he is also the Director of the National Theatre, a post he assumed during the course of rehearsals for
Henry V. He has responsibility for three theatres and the some seven hundred people who work at the National. He says he commissioned the production because he sees the role of the National Theatre in part as
reflecting the nation back to itself through new interpretations of national epics like
Henry V. The director is a leader who has a vision of the play, makes the key decisions, marshals all the resources, and then has to carry cast and company along. For Shakespeare’s Henry V, a play already familiar to British audiences through the film versions by Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh, Nicholas Hytner established several defining features, which distinguish his version from its predecessors. He made it a modern dress production set in a
contemporary context with a simple stripped-down set, and chose to cast against type: the Chorus is female; a black actor, Adrian Lester, plays the King.
This production constantly eschews caricature in favour of more rounded characterisation, whether national types such as Llewellyn the Welshman, low life characters such as Bardolph, Nym and Pistol, young Prince Hal’s drinking buddies; or indeed King Henry himself. Hytner is aiming throughout this production for a sceptical and morally complex portrait of the realities of war and national leadership, which does not lend itself to a glib propagandist interpretation, either for or against war. He wanted the production to have a resonance today.
The director also has to make sure that every nuance and detail of the acting and stage “business” work towards achieving the larger vision. The
Rehearsal Diary gives some telling examples. We are shown the way Hytner adds to the drama of the scene in which Henry unmasks the traitors Grey of Northumberland, Lord Scrope and the Earl of Cambridge. And in the diary’s description of the scene after the battle of Agincourt, we learn how Hytner uses simple gestures to reveal a glimpse of the old street-fighting Prince Hal, when a furious Henry seems about to attack the luckless soldier Michael Williams, only to be restrained by his sage Uncle Exeter.
The director’s task may not even be over when the technical and dress rehearsals are complete and the production finally plays before a paying audience. There may still be improvements to make during the production's run.