SOURCE: “Long Liev the King.” New York Post (16 July 2003): 47.

In the following review of Mark Wing-Davey's 2003 Delacorte Theater staging of Henry V in New York's Central Park, the critic praises Liev Schreiber's “magical, subtle” portrayal of Henry V, but criticizes Wing-Davey's production as cynical and unbalanced.

In Shakespeare's Henry V, in Central Park, Liev Schreiber shows us a young English king heading into war against France who's making all the right moves.

He's listened patiently while the long-winded clergy line up behind the war, and arrested traitors who thought they had him fooled.

Over in France, he gives the troops an encouraging word and (in one of this production's frantic nods to modernism) has a camera record it.

But despite the cool and the smarts, he's lacking something.

For all of his mastery of rhetoric, he wants heart—he needs the messy, sweaty smell of involvement. He wanders...