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Chorus
The Chorus’s bonhomie can be deceptive, as in Michael Boyd’s 2007 production. While undermining a heroic interpretation of Henry, Forbes Masson’s Chorus “ingratiates himself to audiences … His demeanour is simple. Trustworthy. … But he is more threatening than this playfulness suggests, because Masson’s Rumour in 2 Henry IV is this same character."
Re-gendering is another option, which Charles Kean inaugurated in 1859 when he cast his wife, Ellen Tree, as a Chorus who was Clio, the Muse of history. Hytner’s Chorus (Pennie Dowie) was a lecturer obviously besotted with Henry but also disappointed to see that he was not living up to her expectations. In the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s Henry V, J. R. Sullivan cast Corliss Preston as the Chorus: “She nicely mimicked the horses ‘Printing their proud hoofs i’ th’ receiving earth’ (Pro. 27), giving a sense of the energy of the production."