Word: cariou
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...love than with Hero, Robert Foxworth is more light-footed and sympathetic than the ninny he plays deserves. As Hero, whom he unjustifiably denounces at the altar, Roberta Maxwell improves as the show proceeds--though Shakespeare has kept her silent many times when she ought to be vocal. Len Cariou's honest Pedro, Wyman Pendleton's pipe-smoking Antonio, June Prud'-homme's loudmouthed Ursula, Mary Doyle's saucy Margaret, Tony Van Bridge's apoplectic Dogberry, James Greene's perceptive Friar, and most of the lesser parts are in highly capable hands. Of the latter, William Hickey's Second Watch...
...whole, the quality of elocution in this production is better than what the Festival has usually offered in the past. The main burden falls of course on the title role, taken here by Len Cariou, a newcomer to the Festival. Given the concept Kahn has foisted on him, he acquits himself surprisingly well. He is obviously a well-trained classical actor, and his performance at times suggests a young Alec Guinness. The Festival has made a lucky catch...
Understandably, Cariou is not a match for Sri Laurence Olivier, whose Henry V is the one Shakespearean role in which he is indisputably supreme. Carious does not quite have all the voice needed for the "Once more unto the breach" harangue, as magnificent a military pep-talk as anyone has ever trumpeted forth. What is curious is that the British soldiers vigorously hurl balls at the toy cardboard-and-paper castle and have to interrupt the attack to listen to Henry's oratory. Kahn's direction here undercuts the need for any spur to action...
...Cariou is absolutely first-rate, though, in the long and difficult introspective soliloquy on "ceremony," and in the ensuing prayer ("O God of battles, steel my soldiers' hearts"). And his blunt wooing of the French princess in the final scene is wholly admirable. At the performance I attended, Carious was clearly off form in the noble "Saint Crispian" speech (scene caption, if you can believe it: "The Machine Creates the Believable Lie; Point of No Return"). In the line "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers," he even left out the middle phrase, which is probably the most...
...strength of Henry V has to rest with the man who plays the king. It is not an enviable task, for the role will always be haunted with the ghost of Olivier and the undying memory of that shivering heraldic cry, "God for Harry! England and Saint George!" Len Cariou lacks that hortatory magic of voice and presence. He is manly, straightforward and appealing, someone whom troops would always follow into the next town but scarcely into that cauldron of death and glory which is what Shakespeare meant by immortalizing Agincourt on St. Crispin...