Classical Take on Henry V at Shakespeare National Theatre

The first thing Mike and I saw when we arrived at Henry V at the Shakespeare Theatre Company fifteen minutes late last night was a giant papier-mache head with white balls coming out of it. This was a joke that the Dauphin of France sent to King Henry V, sealing the latter's decision to war against France. While this piece of modern know-how detracted from the drama of Henry V, the overall production uses a traditional approach that illuminates the power of Shakespeare's language.

The Shakespeare Theatre is producing Henry V concurrently with Richard II. These histories with overlapping themes share the same exact cast, featuring Michael Hayden as both King Richard and King Henry. This production makes good use of a spare set and three chorus members to paint a picture of the battles and transition from scene to scene, as the players in Elizabethan times needed to do.

Of course, the production is also aided by excellent sound effects during scene changes to mimic the sounds of battle. In addition, elaborate costumes helps the audience clearly distinguish between the French (ostentatious) and English (modest).

Similarly, the acting struck a good balance between flashy and subdued, with each style being used at the right time. Tom Story plays the Dauphin for laughs, injecting a bit of haughty French nasality into every line. He appears as a helpless, flabby sap as opposed to an evil enemy. Story provides good comic relief, though at the cost of credibility.

In contrast, Michael Hayden's Henry is more subtle and convincing. Hayden's Henry evolves over time. While he initially bursts into anger at seeing the Dauphin's tennis gag, by the end of the play, Henry has become a man who is incapable of such a quick, knee-jerk reaction. By communicating with his soldiers and embarking on war together, Henry becomes more reflective. In contrast to the Kenneth Branagh's rousing Saint Crispen's Day Speech, Hayden delivers his version as a fireside chat. He looks each soldier in the eye, recruiting each man personally, as if to say "You, indeed are my brother." It's a solemn, unvictorious tone, that ultimately succeeds.

Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court

Two weeks ago, Amy Bach spoke at Busboys and Poets, DC's famed progressive cafe-bookstore, about ordinary injustice. Such banal injustice is the brand of American justice that goes in county and local courtrooms that chooses expediency over justice when it comes to most minor crimes. Bach outlined her theory that the adversarial system lacks checks and balances on attorneys and judges. The incentives are misplaced so that it's not worth it for defense lawyers to fight for their clients, or for prosecutors to prosecute unwinnable cases. Although defense lawyers and prosecutors are supposed to oppose each other in court, it is generally easier to cooperate at the expense of defendants and victims. Bach was promoting her book, Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court. In it, she builds her case against ordinary injustice by profiling a public defender who didn't defend, a judge who didn't judge, and a prosecutor who didn't prosecute.

The public defender's story stands out the most. Bach focuses on Robert Surrency, the public defender of Greene County, Georgia. On the first day that Bach arrived in this courtroom, she saw a throng of people waving papers at their state appointed attorney, Surrency. It was clear that Surrency had no idea who his clients were. This was because Surrency had a huge caseload. Since most counties are left to decide how to fund indigent defense, there is no nationally used system. Greene County happened to use a system where a public defense contract goes out to the lowest bidder. That year, Surrency bid the lowers for all public defense cases. This means he had his case load on top of his regular full time job. Needless to say, he did not have time to carefully examine each case. Instead, it made sense for him to plea bargain his clients as quickly as possible, whether or not that gave them the best outcome.

The prosecutor's story in Quitman County Mississippi struck a similar chord. Bach found that over the past two decades, nearly all domestic violence cases had been dropped because the prosecutor's investigator deemed these to be the least winnable cases. Juries notoriously feel unsympathetic towards domestic violence victims. In addition, the victims themselves often refused to testify against their abusers. Again, it made sense for the prosecutor -- an elected official-- to simply shove these cases away in a drawer and focus his attention on the big media cases.

Bach's chief insight is that both of these above examples could be mitigated with oversight. The current system doesn't provide incentives for lawyers to check each others work, but the average citizen could check lawyers' work with the right public data. Bach suggests for people to demand information on the number of guilty pleas without an attorney present, the public defender's typical caseload, the numbers and types of cases that go unprosecuted, and the bails and number of days spent in jail for those charged with crimes. With these data, Bach bets that patterns would emerge, holding key players accountable.

Which is more voyeuristic: In Treatment or Dexter?

Netflix is a wonderful thing. Thanks to its no late-fee policy and streaming video, I've been able to watch two shows this year that had been hidden behind the HBO/Showtime wall for me in the past: In Treatment and Dexter. In Treatment is an HBO show that follows a psychiatrist, Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) and four of his patients. When in season, it airs Monday through Friday, with each patient visiting Paul on each day, followed by Paul visiting his own therapist (Dianne Wiest) on Friday. Ninety-nine percent of the action takes place inside Paul's office; the show is entirely dialogue. In contrast, Showtime's Dexter is about a blood spatter specialist who's also a serial killer. Except he only kills other murderers. The action takes place at bloody crime scene and the streets of Miami. In other words, you'd expect In Treatment to appeal to middle age academic types, and Dexter to appeal to gore-loving teenagers. More in the first category than the second, I expected to enjoy In Treatment for its psychological revelations. But after nearly finishing the first season of In Treatment, and the first three seasons of Dexter, I must confess that both satisfies one's voyeuristic interest in others' psychological failings.

In Treatment starts off slowly, with characters contextualizing their existence to Paul. But after the first couple of weeks, Paul starts to unravel their lies and hidden pasts. We come to understand why a gorgeous young doctor has a thing for older men, why a married woman wants to be treated badly by her husband, why an Airforce pilot leaves his wife. Along the way, we also see Paul's marriage disintegrate as he learns of his wife's affair, and confronts his own feelings for one of his patients. Sometimes when a patient misses an appointment, we are treated to an epic fight between Paul and his wife instead. The show is driven by dialogue, but you gradually see how powerful this dialogue is. The verbal abuse that the couple who sees Paul for marriage counseling heap on each other is akin to Antichrist-like physical abuse. Paul's cringe-worthy fights with his wife recall your last epic battle just like how an actor's on screen wound reminds you of that time you needed stitches. In this way, In Treatment exposes raw psychological wounds that make you feel almost shameful for intruding.

Beyond its body count and Michael Hall's astounding acts of killing, Dexter is at its heart a psychological show. In contrast to In Treatment, however, Dexter invites the viewer to explore Dexter Morgan's persona through his thoughtful voiceovers. Dexter tells us he's a "monster," someone who has no feelings. He "needs" to kill. Luckily, his adopted father recognized this need early on and taught him a code to only kill other serial killers. This concept, which could expose Dexter to many plot holes, is remarkably believable due to Dexter's rich psychological development. In the first season, he grapples with his true identity; in the second, he grapples with his adopted father's shadow; in the third, he grapples with sharing himself with others. Even though the other characters are blind to Dexter's true self, the audience feels like Dexter's true confidante. Despite the many dead bodies and other gruesome shenanigans, Dexter does not seek to provide gratuitous grossness.

Separately, both In Treatment and Dexter provide artful depictions of people. Together, they show that this can be done artfully with two very different concepts.