Michael Sheasby is presenting his take on a conflicted king in Shakespeare’s ‘Henry V’, coming to the State Theatre Centre in late July. It’s the first time Bell Shakespeare has performed the play in over a decade. Sheasby explained what made Henry V one of his dream roles. “Everything I’d read, and everything I’d seen about this play was that it was just either this patriotic hero, or this warring tyrant.”
Both Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh have taken iconic turns as the title role, but for Sheasby, he’s determined to make the performance his own and portray Henry V with all the ambivalence and inner turmoil written in the text. “People did their productions for certain reasons I mean with Olivier, that was commissioned to inspire the troops during World War Two.” He explains.
“But if you go back to the text and just flip from page to page, it’s amazing how three dimensional this character is, and how he goes from, on one page doing these incredible things, articulating these beautiful incredible thoughts to the next page doing these horrendous things, saying awful things. That was something that I was very excited about from day one with this director in particular, wanting to focus on both of these aspects, not just whether he was a good guy or a bad guy.”
‘Henry V’ is at the State Theatre Centre from the 23rd to the 26th of July.
Tickets available at www.ticketek.com.au
