Shakespeare offered to happy few

Leila Navidi

Ernie Curcio, left, rehearses a scene last week at the Onyx Theatre in which his character, Henry V, leads an army. An 18-person ensemble carries the three-hour play, with a few playing more than one role.

By Joe Brown

Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Leila Navidi

Curcio performs a scene in which Henry confronts the Lord Scroop of Masham (Thom Chratska) during rehearsals last week. The play manages to depict the courts and battlefields of Europe on a stage measuring roughly 20 by 30 feet.

Vividly violent and ferociously tender, Shakespeare’s “Henry V,” presented by Insurgo Theatre Movement at the Onyx Theatre, is the most impressive performance I’ve experienced during this year in Las Vegas, off or on the Strip.

This huge play is performed in a tiny space — the Onyx seats 100 — but the inspired stagecraft and impassioned and committed acting by an 18-person ensemble explode out of these confines. I wasn’t just impressed — I enjoyed every moment of it.

There are all kinds of reasons to think of George W. Bush while watching “Henry V,” and the resonance of a young monarch urged into hasty war by a claque of advisers may well be one of the reasons director John Beane and Insurgo chose to present this play at this time.

But Beane resists the easy temptation to make pat political statements or contemporize the script in any way. He sticks to the play, which speaks for itself. (If you want to read further into the W. connections, Slate’s Jacob Weisberg says it all in his recent book “The Bush Tragedy.”)

It often takes awhile to settle into the cadences of Shakespeare, but Insurgo’s actors catch the meaning from the first words. It’s clear that every person in this ensemble understands what he or she is saying.

“Henry V” is introduced by the Chorus — who in Insurgo’s staging resembles a certain playwright — calling on the audience to help the players transcend the physical limitations of the stage: “Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France?” he asks, later noting, “’Tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, carry them here and there.”

We’re up to the imaginative challenge, and Shakespeare is well served by Insurgo’s elementally simple staging — a curtain, a table and chairs — which summons the courts and battlefields of England and France on a stage measuring roughly 20 by 30 feet.

While Beane has trimmed about an hour from the script, and minimized the stage business, he has ingeniously interposed violence into the battlefield scenes at Agincourt. Setting as many as 18 actors on the stage at once, fight choreographer Sean Critchfield has designed an inventive array of styles and tactics for these fight vignettes, some of them harrowing and some hilarious, including one variation on a classic Indiana Jones move.

And the actors throw themselves into the fray with all the dangerous gusto of UFC gladiators, clanging, clashing and thrusting their plenty real-looking swords and daggers just inches from the front row.

Ernie Curcio makes a virile and voluble Henry, who radiates authority in the court, courage and camaraderie on the battlefield, and humor when engaging in incognito horseplay with his soldiers and wooing his eventual queen. That would be Katherine, daughter of the French king, played with wit and distinction by Natascha Negro, who is notable also as French ambassador Montjoy and a foot soldier.

This is the one with “once more into the breach, dear friends!” among other famous lines, and it’s one of Shakespeare’s most testosteronious plays. Accordingly, Beane has made his acting ensemble, his happy few, into a true band of brothers (including several women). I can’t remember seeing performers enjoying themselves this much.

There’s isn’t space enough nor time to call out all the deserving performers, many of whom play multiple roles, but nearly every one gets a shining moment.

I’ll admit to sighing audibly when I heard that “Henry V” lasts almost three hours, but I didn’t begrudge a moment I spent experiencing this rousing and right-on production. Let’s hope Insurgo extends Henry’s reign into the new year.