the cast of the Impact Theatre production

This has always been one of my favorite Shakespeare plays; Prince Hal reminds me so much of people in my generation.  And then there's Falstaff.  And Hotspur.  And the battles.  I first directed Henry IV with a group of teenagers at the California Shakespeare Festival.  In cutting the play for that production, it occurred to me that this is a play about a young man without a positive male role model: his father is an overly-ambitious backstabber, and his friends are thieves and drunks.  Hal's choice to join his father in battle is a rejection of Falstaff, but it's also a commitment to becoming a better king than Henry IV.  It's also a play that's deeply concerned with the concept of honor -- critiquing honor as much as celebrating it.
 
My cut of the play, which I directed as a staged reading with the Bay Shakespeare Marathon 2000 and which evolved into "The Impact Remix" at Impact Theatre, is focused on Hal's choices -- between his own father and his surrogate father, between honor and friendship, between the tavern and the court.  Because I wasn't concerned with English history, or with holding anything back for Part Two, I changed the ending: the king is mortally wounded in battle, and speaks some lines from Henry IV Part Two to Hal before his death. 
 
These three productions also incorporated modern dress and props and Eastern fighting styles and weapons, as if taking place in a future that has developed a new system of honor based on a combination of chivalry and the Bushido code of the Samurai -- the Impact production featured elaborately staged battles with katana.