[Max Goodman]

This playing both sides seems a characteristic of Shakespeare, and it may contribute both to the roundness of (many of) his characters and to my dissatisfaction with most of the plays as wholes.

I'm helping a friend prepare to direct Henry V next year. Olivier's and Branagh's film versions famously find conflicting messages about war in the play. I should maybe rewatch Branagh's, because I'm feeling that the play presents Henry as a perfect leader--honest, brave, modest, unrelenting in attack, humane in victory, able to make decisions without worrying about bad results. (Admittedly, if overdone, some of those qualities might not be virtues.) And yet, the very first scene suggests that the clergy of his time had mercenary reasons for goading him into the war against France, and a line or two in Henry's first scene can be read as suggesting that he's not really asking for their honest opinions but directing them to argue for war. This undermines the great accomplishments celebrated throughout the play. But--unless I'm missing it--the play never circles back to this; it moves from undermining to celebration.