An Interview with Millicent Wong on Shakespeare and ‘Henry V’
Millicent Wong recently appeared in the roles of Chorus and Boy in the Donmar Warehouse production of Henry V in spring 2022. In this interview, we discuss the role of the Chorus in shaping the play’s meaning, the character of Henry himself, and why Shakespeare’s plays continues to grip audiences in the 21st century, as new eras gives his plays new meanings.
Ms. Wong was interviewed by Maria Devlin McNair in July 2022. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
What is Shakespeare's play Henry V about and what do you feel the Donmar production of the play was about, and how do those match up?
I found out like a week into rehearsals that when Shakespeare wrote this, it was a play clearly about patriotism and about ‘Britain is the best,’ basically, but there was actually an alternate sort of ulterior motive for it. At the time, Queen Elizabeth was reigning, and this was the time when they were trying to dethrone her … and so there was someone called the Earl of Essex and apparently that was the number one contender … and Shakespeare wrote this play about Henry V conquering and gaining France, and wanted to draw a parallel between the Earl of Essex and Henry, and also at the same time, wanted it to be a thing for the Earl of Essex to look at and be like, “Oh, these are the characteristics of a leader that I should start to exemplify, I should become this person.” So it is really interesting, because this play, apart from just being part of the history plays that Shakespeare wrote, it was a bit of a distract for Elizabeth, and there was also an ulterior motive behind it.
I think the Donmar production has probably taken it and redone it in a modern context … I think the production of Henry V that the Donmar and Max Webster, the director, wanted to go for, very much wanted people to look at leaders in a modern 2022 context, and to examine what people in power are capable of doing and what sometimes they end up doing with all that power and with the pressure that comes with it. So in a way, nothing's changed. The text is the same, even if you've edited out bits … I think the play has stayed the same, but we as a collective audience now derive different meaning from it. I know one of the questions you asked was, Did we play it ironically or kind of the original intention of the play? And I think in a funny way, we just went about it the exact same, with the exact same words that were there, but the meaning that everyone collectively has taken from it is very, very different.
I think that's a fantastic way of putting it — the play is offering the same meaning, but we have changed. If we're gaining a different meaning, that raises the question, where is the meaning? Is it in the text, or is it in the people watching it?
He does tackle these sort of common themes, on a scale from love to violence, he tackles them, but then these themes have remained the same throughout history … there is just us, we are just people, and the same things will always happen, and it will always have something to do with relationships.
Thinking about the leaders that we see in this play — I think about your characters as helping the audience reflect on them. The characters of the Chorus and the boy, how do you think about the way that they function and help the audience understand the characters and the action?
I think I literally am the youngest person in the cast. So Max and I decided it was a thing where the boy and the Chorus were the same people, and it's kind of like the Chorus is retelling this story of war and what this person in power did. And then you're watching the boy live through it and watching what happens which eventually leads to them becoming the Chorus. I remember when I got into the audition room with Max for the very first time, and we had a chat about the Chorus, he told me that he had a very specific idea … the Chorus has normally, has historically been played by sort of grizzly, wizened old men who go “Oh, for a muse of fire!”, Listen to this story, and the fire crackles and everything. And Max just didn't want that. He was just like, “I want the world of this Henry V, because it’s set in present day, I want it to reflect how multicultural London is and how sort of multifaceted the society has become.” And because so many issues in the world are happening right now, we, the generation that is growing up amongst all of this, he wanted to know what we had to say and how we feel about the idea of one person telling an entire country to go to war. And he was just like, “I want someone who hasn't gone through a traditional educational route. I want someone who is bold, who wants to do whatever they want with their hair, who wants to do whatever they want, and I want to know what they have to say and what they think about the events of the play.” So I think that's definitely where the Chorus was functioning. I definitely had a lot more liberties to express how I felt about things through the text, whereas I feel originally, especially if it was kind of like a patriotic thing in an old person, it would've maybe been a bit more nostalgic, a bit more sort of like, “This is how the hero story unfolds.”
I think the boy was good because it's also a good reminder that that is the main demographic, young people who will be doing this if they go to war. And it's weird when you actually think about it — literally everybody you see on TikTok would have to go to war. And it's when you think about the numbers and the fact that a lot of people don't come back, I think it really makes you reassess what this one person has decided to do. Especially since it was just because someone sent him tennis balls.
“I think he's a good man who allowed himself to change because of the circumstances.”
I think that's a great point about how the Chorus can be and has been used to frame this as the hero's journey and his growth. And some people see Henry IV, Henry V as being that. And initially I kind of felt the production teased you with the possibility of that way of framing the story, like you see the wild sort of party boy, then you see the mantle descending with the father's death, and then is he going to rise to the occasion? And I felt like putting that out there made it kind of more powerful when then eventually, it didn't end up going fully in that direction and gave you something different. And so, wanting to talk about this character of Henry, this one person, as you said, who was deploying all this power, and if, as you said, he was originally offered as a portrait of leadership for the Earl of Essex to follow — I've definitely seen a number of readers in the present day interpret Henry that way, that he offers Shakespeare's best model of a leader. So I wanted to ask how you think of Henry as a leader and a person … about where the good leader and good man overlap, or don't, or if neither are there.
Mm, it's a difficult one. And I think it heavily depends on the time period that you're considering, I guess, because for centuries, at least before the past 200 years, across many countries and regions, before countries were even countries, the legacy of warrior-kings is an actual thing. It is a thing that has been so prized, and every culture has wanted a warrior-king, has wanted someone who is fierce, knows battle tactics, doesn't show mercy very easily, and understandably. So back then, I think it was a much harder way of life. There was a lot more war, things were a lot more unstable. So someone like that, who personified those characteristics, would have been the ideal choice. And if they had exhibited violence, people might have just taken it as fair dues in battle. So Henry in the past, maybe, because that's also what Shakespeare probably wanted us to think?
But Henry now, I think, is a different story. I think right now, if you told someone to support a person who invades another country for a personal insult, or that someone executed their best friend that they've known for ages to set an example, or that they threatened another country with putting their babies on spikes — many, many, many things, or even if they committed a war crime — I think we can find an example right now in our world where there is a figurehead that seems to kind of resonate with that. I think the situation in Ukraine has had quite an impact on the cast. And also because it made me realize that, as fun as it is to do this role and to study the wrongness and the rightness of this historical figure, and to complain of being sweaty on the stage or of, like, getting the fake crumbs in my mouth and my eyes, like the reality of it is that I don't have to actually deal with that on a daily basis. And I can just go home and take a shower and lie in bed and use my phone. And I think when you actually think about the fact, instead of it just being someone who has lived and died, that there is someone who is capable of doing exactly that right now, it makes it a lot harder to like that leader. And I think it makes it a lot harder to just forgive them for the things they have done in order to achieve their position, even if it's been better for everyone, maybe. So, yeah, I think — I think he's a good man who allowed himself to change because of the circumstances.
I had that impression too, that the play wanted you to see that kind of change in Henry in a worrying way over the course of the play.
I don't think the Chorus had to do any work to convince the audience. I always feel like with that story … the story goes on and the Chorus butts in really quickly to just be like, “Hang on, wait, just, just consider this, don’t let yourself get swept up from the story, because you have to consider what's going on right here.” But I think with regards to Henry and how people felt about him, I think it was quite easy for the audience to make up their minds as well.
That's a great way to think about the trajectory too, because often the change in Henry is from worse to better, like he was the irresponsible prince and he becomes the king and he takes on this responsibility, but this makes it really compelling case for seeing it the opposite way, going from better to worse as he kind of accepts more the violence.
Yeah, he kind of allows — gives himself permission to do that and to become that …
And so seeing that kind of trajectory, I was very interested to hear about what kind of conversations happened in the rehearsal room and how you and the actor playing Henry and Max and the cast discussed the character and the play to arrive at these interpretations, moving from Shakespeare to the present day and what audiences need to see now.
So we had a lot of talks about whatever was going on in the world, or instances where violence to that degree has been committed throughout time. I think it was really important that we talked about it and we kind of brought our own research to the table. I think Max set us a few questions and we'd just go away and do some research on it. And in the process of researching it, you'd see it and you'd feel it, and that would make the sharing better. But also, I think for a lot of people who grew up in the UK, their grandparents had been in the war, and the thing is that some of them had a lot of stories to tell. And some of them didn't. Personally, I'm from Singapore. I've got stories that my grandparents have taught me about the Japanese occupation. So it was stuff like that. And it was this weird sense of knowing that you were doing a play about war, that people you knew actually had to go through, which made it a lot more real. Again, obviously, the situation in Ukraine happened around the same time, and it was just, it was unavoidable. You wake up every morning and hear the news and you just go into work and know that this was the exact thing you were making something out of. So you have to talk about it. And also, we have Tom … he's our military expert. Tom served in Afghanistan and he served for 10 years, I think. So he told us everything, literally, just gave us permission to ask any questions. And he told us everything about the life of a soldier and it was shocking. And it's just something different to hear about it from someone in person. He talked about the number of deaths that he's had, like friends that he's lost, feelings that he's been through. It's — it's a lot. And I think that was invaluable for us, because you never get to talk to a person, really, who's been through something like that. Even talking about it now, I can feel the weight of what I remember him going through. It really makes you appreciate your life a lot more. And at the same time, really, it really lets you feel the responsibility you have, not just in performing and bringing a play to life, but in respecting the subject matter.
That's so interesting that you have research to do as part of your preparation, about things that happened post-Shakespeare. I was a high school teacher and I taught some Shakespeare, and I'm sure not the only one who has this sense, that students often feel that it's sort of removed from their life … do you think, for students, if there was a similar process of bringing in personal experiences as a legitimized part of their reading, that it would make a difference in how they relate to Shakespeare?
Yeah, I think it really would. This was my first Shakespeare play ever, performing it professionally, and I was terrified, but at the same time — and I think lots of actors would understand, like kids who go to drama club and have to put Shakespeare together, I'm sure you'll get that — there's a Shakespeare ‘voice,’ there's a weird voice that actors sometimes end up falling into, because somehow they think it's all, like, ‘Oh yayeth, nayeth,’ and you just go to like a weird place and I don't know why.
I'm not a teenager anymore, I think I'm closer in age now to a lot of the characters in Shakespeare’s plays, I'm older than them, probably, especially Romeo and Juliet … but in my head, I can't get the image out of my head of them just being old. And you need to realize that they're not, that they're actually a lot more relatable and a lot closer to young people than they think, in order to get that awakening. I mean, even with Romeo and Juliet, for example, everyone knows what it feels like to crush on someone. And everyone knows what it feels like to maybe defy their parents. I think that's definitely an aspect, just bringing it in the modern context.
“Let’s not pretend that the issues in this play don’t exist now … I think every play has an issue that’s still existing.”
Some of these questions are circling around ways that the meaning changes or audiences change, that we might participate in changing the play by bringing new history to it. And I really liked some of the changes that were made to the original text in your production. I particularly wanted to ask you about the conclusion and how you hoped those final lines would land with people, the shift from “his England” to “my England” and “our England.”
Honestly, the Donmar is a lovely venue, and going to the theater is such in the culture of British people, and we love the arts … and it's such a lovely thing to go to at the end of a long week, you just watch humans basically interacting with humans and you feel that that live connection, and that feels really good, and you learn things and you come out wanting to grab a pint with your friends. But I think at the same time, we just wanted to remind people that, you’ve had a lovely evening, but let's not pretend that the issues in this play don't exist now. And that's because I think every play has an issue that's still existing, and it's still important to remind people.
And I think that last bit was really interesting because, first of all, it sounds really rhythmic, in the sense that it goes, “his England, his England, my England, our England.” So it still follows in the traditional vein, but at the same time, it's very little that’s said, but it says a lot. And I think … it reminds people to really, really ask themselves if their country has done everything it could for them, or if it's done more to harm them than it has good. And I think that's a very important question. I mean, Shakespeare is great, and I think it's great to modernize Shakespeare, but there also has to be a good reason why you want to modernize it, apart from just making it more relatable. There's got to be somewhere, I think, you're going with it. And I think Max did a really smart and cheeky thing there by kind of adding on something at the end, but still staying true to the body of the story.
… I had a friend who's British, she's Asian, and she came to see the show, and when we came out afterwards and we went for a drink, I remember she said, “You have no idea how powerful and meaningful that was for me, to not only see someone who looks like me on stage in such a visible role speaking a non-English language, but also finishing up this play challenging an entire room full of people, regardless of race, ethnicity, to think, but also inviting them to feel united in that one space in that question.” And I think that is the magic of theater, that you can challenge strangers and you can stare them down as an actor onstage, but at the same time, you can do it with so much generosity that you hope it reaches them.
It’s such a fascinating way of turning around what the patriotism means in this play. One of the most famous pieces of political rhetoric in the United States is JFK saying, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” And that's meant to be obviously what a patriot would think: how can I serve my country? But then this play points out, if too many people internalize that in the wrong way, “I would owe it to my country to do anything it asked of me, even this invasion,” then that can be a very dubious form of patriotism. And on the other hand, what's wrong with asking what the country should be doing for its people? Shouldn't that be what the country is for?
Also speaking from a personal standpoint of being someone who is East Asian, but not from here, anyway — I've heard what people growing up have had to go through, or I've heard about things that maybe haven't benefited a specific community, or have made it harder for a community to integrate into the country, as much as the country is saying, “Come here, we will welcome you.” And I think lots of things have worked and lots of things happened, and I think it's great to make an audience sit through a three-hour-long play about people in power and at the very end of it, to go think about it, just think about it, while you go for your drink, talk with your friends over a drink — think about it.
Thinking about all the themes you've mentioned in Henry V and different ways that it's been played, do you feel like, in any time or place, there would be one thing you'd hope people would be able to see happening in this play?
I think a very valuable lesson I learned from drama school, which I just keep with me, is that all you have at the end of the day is your humanity. It's the vast amount of humanity that you have for everyone that you come across, or all the characters that you will ever play. And I think what I want people to remember throughout it, as they are watching this person do all these things, is to just think about that -- what is happening to the people around him, what's happening to him, and how that affects everyone. And however they feel about that, I think what's important is that they will always consider everyone. And I think that's really important because war really affects everyone. It’s their humanity.
That was my impression, as you said, that Henry kind of gives himself permission to embrace this role of powerful dictator … initially, he seems to be like displaying more concern for the French, but that seems to dissipate as the play goes on.
I think he gets more impatient and just wants to get it done.
“On paper, he’s a great ruler. He's done everything by the book and he’s achieved his results … But if you consider emotionally, mentally, the kind of abuse that the people he interacts with go through and the kind that he puts himself, then …”
I don't know if the play suggests anything about how someone with that power can avoid being made worse by it, but it's very compelling to watch the process happen.
I think more recently, though, there is a bigger examination of how people feel. That's the reason why the mental health movement has come such a long way now, and why it's more important to just understand everyone's lived experiences. Maybe that wasn't as pressing a need in the past. I think, you know, on paper, he's a great ruler. He's done everything by the book and he's achieved his results. He has. So if you just consider that, I guess he's a good leader. But if you consider everything else, emotionally, mentally, the kind of abuse that the people he interacts with go through and the kind that he puts himself, then I don't think —
And then especially because thinking about the emotional and sort of mental aspect is a very 2022 way of looking at it, but if the play's being set in 2022, then I think that's definitely something to consider.
So some people question whether Shakespeare should still have the cultural prominence in 2022 that he does — it's something a lot of people have to do in drama school and have to read in school and a huge presence, culturally, in the Anglophone world and even beyond that. And some academics, Shakespearean scholars, address this question of, Does Shakespeare merit this role? Does he contribute to society in a good way, at the scale that he’s represented? What makes Shakespeare important or relevant today? And is that something inherent in his work, or something that practitioners have to bring out by the way that they perform or use Shakespeare?
I think it's really interesting, and I don't think I have an answer for it, but the one thing I will say about him, apart from the fact that his books are readily accessible everywhere, is that you have epics like the Iliad and the Odyssey and The Three Kingdoms, and you have epics from all over the world from different cultures, and I think the special thing about his stories is that they are, in a sense, epics. They're extreme, you know, they portray emotions almost chaotically and so intensely, and there is something intoxicating about that and every other sort of epic that's ever been written, is the intensity of how humans feel in that story.
But I think what's great about his stories is that they're broad. They tackle broad themes, but very specifically, and like any good writer does, he gives you just enough to have details in the story, but leaves out a lot for you to fill in the blanks.
And the thing is that his stories aren't dated to a particular time, even if they were written with that intention. They're kind of timeless, because they could happen to anyone, and you will always find these archetypes in his plays everywhere in the world. So there will always be room for that. As to its relevance, I think it seems like there's been a huge attempt from a lot of creatives to shake it up and give it something different and maybe modernize it or do something else with it and put it on its head, and I think that's amazing. And I think they should continue to do that, because his stories have stood the test of time for a reason, just like any other epic, and there will always be retellings time and time again.
I've read a play by Cordelia Lynn where she has kind of rewritten Hedda Gabler, and it’s called Hedda Tesman, and I can't remember whether it's continuation or whether it's like a rejig, but I thought that was amazing. And apparently at Donmar right now, they're doing Nora: A Doll’s House Part Two. So it seems like people are doing stuff with the classics and trying to like shake it up, like Max Webster does, he loves shaking classics and shaking things up. I think with fresh life being given to it, it will still be relevant.
As to the gravitas that people place on it, I think it's maybe a mixture of intimidation and just age, like the fact that he's stuck around for so long and he's stuck to people and his text has been translated into so many different languages, performed in lots of different languages. I think there must be something about his writing that people connect with, which is the reason why he’s stuck around for so long. And I think as long as it doesn't hamper new writing from coming up the ground, which it clearly hasn't, cause we've had some amazing writing, on stage and on screen — then it wouldn't hurt for him to be there. He's got such specific language and I think it's very special.
“I think the special thing about his stories is that they are, in a sense, epics. They’re extreme, they portray emotions almost chaotically.”
You had some of the most iconic lines in the Shakespeare canon, and this was your first Shakespeare play to tackle. If someone as a student in the classroom is asked to read or memorize or perform a speech, do you have some thoughts as an actor about how they tackle the speech ? Obviously in terms of its meaning, but how you get a sense of why everyone says this language is so great – like what's the big deal? How do you start approaching that?
I think what's great about his language is that it's so — he uses senses. He talks about seeing things and hearing things and feeling a room go cold, or tearing something, or even when someone's yelling, it's about yelling up to something or yelling at something, almost as if their voice could physically affect something solid and in the physical world. And I think that's why the writing is so powerful, because so many of the words, on their own, give you such a good image in your head. And at the same time, I think it's a skill to write a sentence that lasts so long and encapsulates like three thoughts in one, that in itself is just poetic and really beautiful. And I think it's the mastery of that which is great. And the fact that it's not just poetry, but it's dialogue as well.
So what Max did with me was just separating sections … and then trying to figure out what they're actually saying. So for example, I think the third speech, “The French advised by good intelligence / Of this most dreadful preparation / Shake in their fear.” So the gist of that is, the French heard what's going on and are now scared. And I think once you know that, it's like, “Oh, okay, sure.” And then the next bit of that is, “And with pale policy / Seek to divert the English forces.” And when you speak just in a regular voice, it makes more sense, rather than trying to go from zero to a hundred and just going, “The FRENCH, ad-VISED,” and just doing the iambic pentameter thing. I think if you just make sense of it in modern day, maybe, you know, imagine you're a teacher trying to mark someone's essay and being like, “Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?”, and just kind of figuring out each spot, and once you’ve figured everything out, it becomes a lot easier to just talk and just say the text.
I think a lot of it is definitely intimidating, because I was really intimidated, but once you just start making sense of it, it just gets better. So that's what I would say — just make sense of it.
I was just looking at Antony and Cleopatra yesterday, and Antony talks about his wife dying, who he’d abandoned, and he's feeling bad about this, and he says, “The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on,” and you have this image of Antony actually shoving his wife, like off a precipice or something, and then after she's fallen down, trying to reach back for her. And it's so short, [but] it’s very suggestive.
There's an amazing. The ending of Brave New World, which I read, oh, over 10 years ago now, but just the most suggestive imagery (trigger warning) … how they explain what happens to the main character is XYZ character opens the door to the main character's room and sees a pair of feet turning north … northeast … east … west … south … And you know what's going on, you just know, you just see this image of feet just hanging and swaying, and it's amazing. That’s what language is. It's just being cheeky with language.
This is one of my favorite plays, and it was so lovely to talk with you about it and hear this very unique perspective that you have.
Oh, I'm so happy to talk about it, too.