Leiderschap en macht: Ivo van Hove’s Kings of War [Stage review of: I. Van Hove (2015) Kings of War]

Leiderschap en macht. Leadership and power: these are the two central concerns of Ivo van Hove's smart, sleek Kings of War, and they manifest in both surprising and anticipated ways during the play. Kings of War is van Hove's four-and-a-half hour adaptation of Henry V, 2 & 3 Henry VI, and Richard III. Such an adaptation is ambitious, and the production exceeds that ambition. But this is not van Hove's first foray into large-scale Shakespeare adaptation. His five-and-a-half-hour Roman Tragedies --Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus--premiered in 2007 to critical acclaim. For all the ways that it feels far from Shakespeare--in language, media, and production--the play in fact stays closest to its origins in pursuing and insisting upon the theatricality of politics and of political power.