UNDERGRADUATE PAGE
Princes to Act
By DAVID WAINWRIGHT (St. Edmund Hall, Oxford)
WE are crammed, a kindly audience, into a long narrow hall with a steep roof, its windows curtained so that the early evening sunlight cannot spoil the lighting effects of the prep. school play. Henry V seems an ambitious choice, but this school has a reputation for its Shakespearean produc- tions. We are benign because we are all parents or friends of the school, our critical judgemews suspended, our faces red with parental pride or kindly interest. Here, we know, enthusiasm will be the prime virtue—unripeness is all, and the only-half- remembered line, the uncertain action hastily recalled, will be more delightful than the boy who precociously knows his part to perfection. Jostled together on chairs well-designed for narrower bodies (why do prep. school-masters not spread out the chairs in their schools halls when they invite adults to use them ?), we watch the children in the front rows. A cacophonous hubbub rises like steam into the rafters. The pure cutting treble voices in the first three rows superimpose themselves on the noise and float above the waves of sound. They are an average cross-section of small boys, and you recognise your own contemporaries, who, curi- ously, have remained ten, eleven or twelve. There is the dark boy with prominent features who used to collect stamps with a religious fervour, his glasses frosting in the heat, he making more noise than anyone. Occasionally as they twist and turn, chatter to one another, take off their jackets, punch one another with a momentary intensity or stand on their chairs to wave at some familiar face in the rows behind, the odd face is memorable by a childish translucence of skin, pure gold of light-dashed hair, or startling blue of eyes.
The doors are shut, the house-lights dim, flicker and go out.
From one side of the stage steps a master, stocky, greying, in blue trousers and a casual blue open-necked shirt. There is a cheer, which' he ignores, settling his spectacles on his nose, and proceeding to admonish us with the accustomed peremptory tone of a schoolmaster. We sit surprisingly still, remembering other places and other times. He tells us that the programme. is in- accurate: there is a flutter and a rustling as we search our papers for the names of which he speaks. The whole business is point- less, since he tells us too quickly for us to write the alterations, and we have already been told a dozen times by -a shocked Ian, his round face lined with sympathy, of all the important part- changes among his friends—and who else is there to worry about? The master withdraws aniid general appladse, and we wait for the arrival of Chorus, remembering that he is an under- study. " The Dauphin of France will speak the Chorus." There is a trumpet-call ; the audience hushes itself ; a spot- light hesitates, shudders, and then pricks the curtain-division, five feet up. A hand tugs one of the blue velvet tabs, and a tiny boy appears in a black tabard, blue-trimmed, a blue velvet hat perched above a flaxen wig. - He stands, his mouth quivering slightly, his chin up and forward, the light accentuating its firm- ness and the dark brilliance of his eyes. The audience is silent, exuding support and sympathy. He speaks, a northern accent just perceptible behind the tutored diction of the first evocation: ' 0 for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention: A kingdom for a stage, princes to act . ... ." As he settles down his gestures become more natural. When he throws his arms asunder and glances from finger-tip to finger-tip at " this wooden 0 ',' we are almost taken in : the honours-boards on the walls assume a new significance as the fabric of the Globe. His throatily-clear request that we are to imagine, when they talk of horses, that we see them, is so earnestly delivered that he would be callous indeed who could iy, ore it. The boy bows jerkily, breathes heartily, and ducks be ii. , I the curtain. , ( Another trumnet-call, the curtains part, and the throne-room is revealed. All sense of proportion is lost. A grown-up in this almost Lilliputian world would be a giant, and once the curious effect of characters speaking all with unbroken voices has been surmounted, the powerfulness of some of the acting can be fully appreciated without any qualification. Henry himself it is impos- sible to believe only twelve. The wisdom of his advisers is that of mature men. But look, here come the servitors of the Ambas- sadors of France, bearing a most lovely wooden casket which is laid before the King. He asks Exeter what it contains, and the audience waits, breathless as that first gathering at the Globe, as this precociously ancient Duke of Exeter walks, unhuiried, to the box, raises the lid, looks in—(the tension rises : what is it?)— pauses in shocked appreciation, drops the lid with a clatter, faces the King, and enunciates with a decisive consonant : " Tennis- balls, my liege.", There is a murmer of insulted sympathy from the observers, and the first great dramatic moment has been brought off with triumph.
Enthusiasm is the prime virtue, and the liveliness of all the acting is its finest commendation. It may be that the inspiration comes from the producer, who acts all-the parts in turn and then tries to persuade the boys to copy his interpretation, which they do with marked success. But they enjoy it, and they convey their enjoyment, as the youthful Henry thunders of St. Crispian, as Fluellen, incensed as only a stage-Welshman can be, makes Pistol eat a leek. Shrieks of amusement come from the front rows as showers of expectorated raw leek cover them. " He hit the fifth row in rehearsals," mutters a youthful admirer. His mother turns and whispers. " Where do they get leeks at this time of the year ? "
Best of all, perhaps, is the scene in which Princess Katherine learns English. This is very popular, since the Princess is one of the few girls in the school, a born actress who glories in the tremendous possibilities of the part. Her dazzling smile in the direction of the French master as she delectably mis-pronounces " 11-bow " captures all hearts. The last scene, too, is greeted rapturously, as Henry falls somewhat inaccurately across Katherine's shoulder, recovers, pecks in great embarrassment at her neck, stands upright, and remarks in a voice which quite dis- tinctly blushes: " You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate."
It is all over. The last curtain has been taken, the full cast splayed about the stage smiling with relief, the nervous small boy who has acted the part of one of his own ancestors clenching and unclenching his hands in unconscious imitation of his father when lecturing. We have sung the National Anthem, flooded down the fire-escape and across the school-yard past the ridiculous pepper- pot which ought to serve some less utilitarian function than in fact it does. We have mingled with the actors, their faces caked with make-up and ageing purple "liner." Standing round tables in School House loaded with salads and enormous strawberries, we tell one another how marvellous it was. Chorus thrusts an ice-cream into our hands' and we ask him how much voice he has left. He grins broadly, replies succinctly, " None ! " and buries his mouth in a plate of chocolate pudding.
The extraordinary thing, perhaps, is that the play was good : an evening's magnificent entertainment, presented through the entirely unsophisticated medium of twelve- and thirteen-year- olds. In a corner, a potential dramatic critic for the national Press is less enthusiastic. " Yes," he remarks, with all the authority of a newly-elected scholar of one of the great public schools, " it wasn't bad ; and it would have been jolly good but for mumps."
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