Peter Birnie, Vancouver Sun Published: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 Children's Festival: Madcap Henry the Fifth floats on innovation HENRY THE FIFTH Variety Theatre,

The brightest heaven of invention can be found in live theatre, where an audience's imaginary forces must work to create kingdoms and battles, soldiers and horses. That's what we're told in the prologue to Shakespeare's King Henry V, and a very loose adaptation of that powerful play proves to be especially dependent on our ability to conjure up stage magic. At the Vancouver International Children's Festival, a special performance of Henry the Fifth on Monday night felt like an archetypal international experience. First, English stand-up comedian James Campbell thanked the festival's sponsors in a funny sketch performed with a young Canadian cohort, festival director Lindy Sisson's 12-year-old son Jeremy. Germany 's Theatre Gruene Sosse perform Henry the Fifth. Then Theatre Gruene Sosse, a troupe from Frankfurt, Germany, directed by Inez Derksen from the Netherlands, presented their English-language version of Heinrich der Fünfte - first produced in 1992 by a Belgian, Ignace Cornelissen. With strong German accents, a woman (Friederike Schreiber) and a trio of men (Sigi Herold, Willy Combecher, Horst Kiss) portrayed French and English kings and queens with an interesting, EU sort of disregard for conventional borders. The result is an oddity that should appeal to kids eight and up. I'd like to see pre-teens and teens show up to enjoy these antics, because all too often the fun to be found can be buried in a blur of full, flowery Shakespearean text.

Here, however, the accented English is spoken in an entirely modern idiom. Henry is a foolish and flighty prince, his rival the dauphin a pompous prat and Katherine, who will marry one and then the other, is a feisty French princess determined to remain true to herself. In this highly simplified story, Henry hates living in a drafty old castle and finds a much nicer property in France - represented by a sandcastle sitting on a table. With the help of a narrator whose big book holds the whole story, Henry learns he has a right to claim said sandcastle, and indeed all of France, as his own. Needless to say, the French aren't going away without a struggle. The castle on a table stands inside a boxing ring, swords and shields will be bashed about and the end result is a sandy mess symbolizing the insanity of war. Far from being beholden to the Bard, Henry the Fifth is able to float (look for further symbolism in an array of helium-filled balloons) on its own theatrical innovation, finding fun in an ongoing battle between the narrator and those he controls. The result is rather madcap, and although it's not worth a dot as actual history, this is a fun way to play with theatre when you're too young for Titus Andronicus. Vancouver Sun Theatre Critic pbirnie@png.canwest.com

By Juliane Spatz (English translation by Christopher Cafier Shakespeare not just for kids The „Theater Gruene Sosse performs Ignace Cornelissen’s Henry V

Seldom is a set so impressive in its simplicity and yet so symbolic of that which is about to be performed: a boxing ring with a sand castle enthroned in its center. There’s going to be a fight here, a fight for the castle. A march is playing; offstage a child’s voice asks “Are we allowed to watch a war?” and in march four actors once around the ring. Now the play can begin. It starts out in England. There, the young king Henry V is pondering a way to fill the country’s empty coffers. Then a beautiful princess appears to him in a dream dancing around a huge castle. Henry wants to have them both, but as our story’s narrator lets him know, both are in France. In an ancient book Henry reads that France belongs to England. For Henry the case couldn’t be clearer. “Henry the Fifth,” a play for children eight years and older, is an outstanding Shakespeare adaptation which the belgian producer Ignace Cornelissen premiered in 1992 with his group “Het Gevolg”. Frankfurt’s “Theater Gruene Sosse” presents the german premiere at the Theaterhaus directed by Inez Derksen of the Netherlands. The play stays true to the original throughout, but whereas “Henry V” is considered Shakespeare’s most patriotic play with Cornelissen the question of the senselessness of war becomes the pivotal point. And thus, for example, he lets the old king die which culminates in a battle for the french crown between Henry, Princess Katherine and her cousin. Katherine, caught between two fronts and finally forced to marry her cousin, escapes at the first opportunity, while the war for France rages on and onstage is all a foul smelling tumult.

“Theater Gruene Sosse’s production of “Henry the fifth” is carried by the concentrated interplay of the actors, clear, penetrating images and a well balanced mixture of seriousness and levity. Henry (Guenther Henne) is depicted as an obstreperous youth who wants simply to have all that he desires. He often behaves inappropriately as if he were still carousing through the taverns with Falstaff. Opposite him, Katherine’s cousin (Willy Combecher) who temporarily becomes France’s new king, proves to be a power hungry, vain and lascivious dandy. Between them (Suzanne Schyns) plays a very fresh, cheeky and lively Katherine. She is neither interested in the temptations of power, nor does she wish to get caught up in the two kings’ cockfight. And finally there is the narrator, a role Sigi Herold fills most suitably as the relentlessly ironic messenger of fate. There are bitter present day references, such as when the narrator sits watching the fighting kings like a couch potato in front of the boxing ring with prezels and beer. Again comes the child’s voice from offstage asking: “Are we allowed to watch a war?” The narrator’s role, constantly involved in discussion with the protagonists over the development of the story, makes clear how much a tale is molded by its teller. The performance lasts 60 minutes; it moves its audience from start to finish, from laughter to fright and finally to reflection. It’s a successful production, well worth seeing, for children 8 years and older and adults