Grinnell TDPS stages adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “Henry V” at summer camp

The “Henry V” play staged this semester by Grinnell College’s theatre, dance and performance studies department was quite unlike the original play it was based on, “The Life of Henry the Fifth,” written by William Shakespeare.

The show was directed by Karie Miller, visiting assistant professor of theatre and dance and performance studies. “When I make theatre, I’m responding to [the] world as I’m experiencing it,” she wrote in an email to The S&B. “I tend to do comedy more than drama; the world is dramatic enough. And if you can inject a little levity into the discouraging daily grind, why not?”

Staged at the Flanagan Theater in the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, the performed play takes place in a summer camp called Happy Few Dramatical Society, where the kids of Camp Happy Few each act as a character from the original play. Several posts act as tower tops, and signs along the walls of the theatre say “Camp Happy Few.” A large, heavy beige cloth draped over the back of the stage serves as the tent that campers huddle under. Dark tan and brown wooden stairs lead up to the second-floor balcony of the theater, where campers make grand proclamations as their Shakespearean counterparts to audiences down below.

Miller wrote in the program of the show that the decision behind adding a summer camp to the play is based on her experiences with summer camp as a child. “I felt seen in a way I never knew possible over my several summer sessions at Camp Judy Layne Girl Scout Camp,” she wrote in the director’s note of the program. In an email sent to The S&B, Miller wrote, “Summer camp has its own rules, and you can be whomever you want to be for that week or so away from home. The world works differently at camp, and the whole point is to have fun.”

“I never thought that if I was doing Shakespeare, I would be doing it at a summer camp,” said Desmond Cortés `27, the lead, who plays Daniel, a Happy Few camper that plays King Henry V.

“It does lend an interesting challenge to the performance because I’m not playing Henry V. I’m playing Daniel, who’s playing Henry V,” he said. “Every one of us has our little camper … we have like the sort of character archetype and vague idea of who our camper is. And then our camper is playing the character and we are trying to do, ‘Okay, how would my camper react to this line if they’re trying to act?’”

The entire play takes place on the modestly-sized floor of the Flanagan Theater. Yet, the play itself shifts through different times and places according to events that occurred in the Hundred Years’ War between England and France. As the show progresses, so does the incorporation of lighting, or lack thereof, used to indicate changes in the setting. One instance was the incorporation of blue waves that dropped down to the floor of the stage, representing a river crossing on King Henry V’s journey to visit France.

Henry V sends his diplomats to the French throne to negotiate his takeover. (Natalie Ng)

Cortés said that as part of the show, the actors had to directly signal to the audience shifts in the various locations the stage represented as the play progressed. “It is just at the playhouse saying, ‘Hey, we know that we’re on a stage right now. Will you, with your imagination, imagine the vast fields of France, the field of Agincourt?’” he said. “Within that stage, we’re still trying to do, ‘Okay, now they’re at Harfleur. Now they’re at the pier. Now they’re back in England.’”

Aside from modifying the play’s setting, Henry V’s production team also altered the script, in terms of language used and popular culture references, to be more relevant to modern times. A key change, said Cortés, was that they translated original French-language scenes into “brain rot.” “This scene here that was supposed to be in the original script is Katherine learning vocabulary from her maid, Alice, and it’s all in French. And that’s our ‘brain rot’ audience participation scene.”

The term brain rot is popular amongst internet users that refers to the deterioration of mental faculties accompanying the overconsumption of nonsensical, often short-form, digital media. With reference to brain rot, Miller wrote, “In contemporary Grinnell, the reasons governing who does and does not speak French seem somewhat apolitical and arbitrary. Instead, to create a similar dramaturgical tension, we have chosen to translate the French text into what is known as ‘brain rot slang.’”

“I’m just interested in the linguistic challenge the play offers and didn’t want to just cater to the French speakers on campus,” she wrote.

Additionally, said Cortés, “We will swap out names of things that would’ve been relevant to the English audiences when it was originally being performed, to things that are more relevant to Grinnellians. Boy George and Binston Swango and all that.”

Henry V premiered on Saturday, Nov. 15. There are more opportunities to experience Camp Happy Few, with shows until Saturday, Nov. 22.