The Amusing Henry VI

Last Saturday my friend Grace and I went to the theatre in Arras to see Shakespeare’s Henry VI translated into French. I was especially excited/nervous, because 1.) I had never seen a Shakespeare play on stage before, 2.) I had no idea what Henry VI was about and so I had to look it up on Wikipedia the night before, and 3.) A Shakespeare play translated into French. Enough said.

I LOVED it.

There were many serious parts to it, obviously, it’s a serious play, but the overall tone of the first half of the play (which is what we stayed for- 4 hours out of an 8 hour play, I was pretty satisfied haha) was quirky and so, so amusing.

Some general ideas to understand: the play is about Henry VI (king of England in the early 1400s with some questionable mental health stability whose actions led to the eventual War of the Roses, which ended with the Tudor dynasty taking power of England, cue The Tudors), but it begins while he is a few months old. And so, most of the first act or so focuses on the historical events leading up to his marrying his French wife, Marguerite, when he was about 23 (according to Wikipedia). These events include a lot of war between France and England, including Joan of Arc and her role in the Hundred Years War.

So now, the hilarious details: the “horses” used were wooden chairs, Joan of Arc rocked a neon blue bob, the French made fun of themselves and the English, the battle scenes were basically dance scenes with a lot of strobe light, techno music, moshing, and the swords were actually those long, narrow pieces of cloth attached to a plastic rod. And, in keeping up with the French culture: there were instances of nudity and smoking while on stage. The actors, during stage changes, also poked fun at how long the play is. After about an hour or so into the first part, the woman talking to us during a scene change had actually said: “There are 15 acts in this play, and we just finished scene one of act one.” She was hilarious.

This play ended up being an amazing cultural experience that I think wouldn’t have had such an impact on me had it been as somber as the Shakespeare original. By presenting his ideas, still accurately, but with their own little twist, really presented French humor in a unique and awesome way. And as humor being very hard to understand in different languages, Grace and I were to able to interact with the play and the audience through understanding their humor as if we were also French.