Richard III (Play)

Subterms

    Latest story

    138 Shares199 Views

    Review: An All-Female ‘Richard III’ Makes for an Evening of Discontent

    by

    The New York Classical Theater adaptation, playing in New York’s city parks, feints toward novelty but offers little in the way of originality.The idea of an “all-female, gender-fluid, disability forward” staging of “Richard III” — as New York Classical Theater describes its new production of Shakespeare’s tragedy about the monstrously degenerate Plantagenet king — tantalizes. Will the protagonist, who loves to “descant on mine own deformity,” make us see anew the premium that society places on women’s appearances? Will the Duke of Gloucester be re-envisioned as a bloody-minded assassin like the bloody-minded Villanelle of “Killing Eve?” Will it force us to reckon with discrimination against the disabled in the royal court? As realized in this risk-shy adaptation directed by Stephen Burdman, the answer is none of the above.This “Richard III,” which plays in New York parks through July 9, feints toward novelty while offering little in the way of originality — the actors all inhabit the genders of their characters as originally conceived. The title role is played by Delaney Feener, a strong actor with a “limb difference,” as the press material takes care to note. But with her shortened right arm hidden beneath a cloak, Feener’s Richard does not immediately register as a “boar,” “bottled spider,” “foul-bunched toad” or any of the bestial lumps to which he is repeatedly compared by other characters. That can be a valid choice if explored thoughtfully, but even after Richard reveals that shortened arm to us and says he is “determined to prove a villain,” we gain little insight into his psychology; it’s unclear if this line is a boasting assertion of will or a victim’s lament.During the ambulatory adaptation, audience members pick up their own blankets or collapsible chairs and walk to different sections of the parks.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesWhile certain scenes are understandably curtailed or excised — a requirement in compressed versions even longer than this one’s two hours — the removal of Queen Margaret from a production starring women and gender-nonconforming actors is less forgivable. Though often seen as a peripheral character, she serves as a linchpin in the Wars of the Roses and appears in all of Shakespeare’s first series of history plays, her curses having the force of prophecy. Along with Queen Elizabeth (a regal Kristen Calgaro) and the Duchess of York (Pamela Sabaugh), Margaret traditionally forms a trinity of grieving women that usefully recalls the three Fates or Furies.This ambulatory adaptation, which requires audience members to pick up their own blankets or collapsible chairs and walk to different sections of the parks, also does not make for the most accessible production. A change of scenery sometimes proves dramatically fortuitous, as when a tree provides handy cover for one of many beheadings, but more often disrupts the momentum of proceedings. When Richard is finally unhorsed from power and swallowed into the night, we should feel relieved that his reign of terror has ended. But we don’t: The problem with this “Richard III” is that its villain is not a “boar” but a bore.Richard IIIThrough July 9 at various New York City parks; nyclassical.org. Running time: 2 hours.This review is supported by Critical Minded, an initiative to invest in the work of cultural critics from historically underrepresented backgrounds. More

    More stories

    • 113 Shares139 Views

      in Theater

      Canada’s Stratford and Shaw Festivals Revive Four Classic Works

      by

      At the Stratford and the Shaw theater festivals, four heated classics get cool new productions for summer.STRATFORD, Ontario — “All’s Well That Ends Well” is one of Shakespeare’s least-loved comedies. “Gaslight” is a hopeless old melodrama purveying woman-as-victim tropes. And “Chicago” is so covered with Bob Fosse’s fingerprints — or are they footprints? — that the musical can hardly be imagined without him.Yet on a recent trip to Canada — six days here at the home of the Stratford Festival and another day in Niagara-on-the-Lake, where the Shaw Festival performs — I saw all three of those shows successfully remade. I also saw one classic, “Richard III,” successfully left alone.Is there something healthful to revivals in the air up here? The productions run through the end of October, so you have time to find out for yourself.Stratford’s “All’s Well,” at the brand-new Tom Patterson Theater, was perhaps the biggest surprise. As usually performed, it is the distasteful tale of a callow playboy named Bertram who treats the friend who loves him — Helen, a young “gentlewoman” of his mother’s household — as a discardable childhood toy. And though Helen eventually gets her revenge, employing a textbook “bed trick” to snare him, that too feels icky.Indeed, “All’s Well” often comes off as a Shakespearean supercut. Bertram’s mother, a recently widowed countess, retails Polonius-like pearls of wisdom; a fop soldier gets a Malvolio-like comeuppance; and the dying King of France is magically rescued from apparent death like 32 other characters in the canon.But with vibrantly detailed performances under the direction of Scott Wentworth, the Stratford production turns the problems into assets. Bertram (Jordin Hall) isn’t frivolous; on the brink of manhood, he’s terrified of being trapped by his past. Likewise, Helen (Jessica B. Hill) draws on the anguish, verging on rage, that is the other side of a crush. That you want the best for both of them — and even for the poor fop (Rylan Wilkie) — makes the conflicts more compelling.A subtler transformation has turned the countess (Seana McKenna, superb) and the king (Ben Carlson, likewise) from stock dotards into complex characters. This is achieved less by rethinking motivations than by burrowing into the language, far richer than I imagined. The updating of the period — which from Michelle Bohn’s Edwardian costumes appears to be World War I — is just enough to provide the actors with recognizable social situations (a funeral, a farewell) that make the verse feel purposeful instead of just pretty. For pretty, there are restless Satie-like piano études by Paul Shilton.“All’s Well” is thus revealed as less of a knockabout romp than a moving look at the stages of maturity: how it is at first avoided at all costs, then pursued uncertainly and, eventually, for the lucky, achieved with dignity if not a little rue.Jennifer Rider-Shaw as Velma Kelly in a revival of “Chicago,” directed by Donna Feore, who replaced Fosse’s choreography with her own.Cylla von TiedemannWalking a few blocks along the Avon River — yes, that’s its real name — brings you from the Tom Patterson to the Festival Theater, where “Chicago,” directed and choreographed by Donna Feore, is playing. Feore is the first person permitted by the show’s rights holders to replace Fosse’s choreography in a major production; as she has shown in previous Stratford musical revivals, including “Guys and Dolls” and “The Music Man,” she makes every new step count.But actually, she’s not very interested in steps, as Fosse so distinctively was. (His style is much the same no matter the material.) Rather, she builds on social dance of the period, the late 1920s, to tell the story she’s chosen to highlight. That story is less about the cynicism of the American justice system — how two “merry murderesses” (Jennifer Rider-Shaw and Chelsea Preston) get off the hook by turning their crimes into showbiz — than about women negotiating the tricky new landscape of independence and prohibition.So when six incarcerated women perform the “Cell Block Tango,” we see their men getting bumped off — and they look as if they deserved it. And when Hunyak, the immigrant who maintains her innocence to the end, is nevertheless executed, Feore stages the scene as an aerial act, having the doomed woman (Bonnie Jordan) descend from the top of the theater on a satiny ribbon that becomes her noose. I won’t reveal how Billy Flynn, the self-serving lawyer played by Dan Chameroy, departs.Still, this “Chicago” is a mostly joyful take, as is nearly inevitable with full sets and costumes instead of the bleak aesthetic of the long-running Broadway revival. (With everyone wearing black in that production, it can sometimes seem like a super-chic sorority wake.) Feore has apparently drawn inspiration instead from the great Kander and Ebb song “All That Jazz,” which starts the show on a note of liberation: “Oh, I’m no one’s wife/but, oh, I love my life.”That sentiment is nothing you’d expect to find in “Gaslight,” the 1938 Patrick Hamilton thriller about a woman driven nearly insane by her husband. In earlier versions of the story, including the 1944 George Cukor film, the wife, Bella, is a bewildered victim of psychological torture and a mostly passive participant in the escape from her husband, Jack. She’s rescued by a police detective, whom we understand she may marry next.André Morin as Jack and Julie Lumsden as Bella in a revamp of the classic thriller “Gaslight” at the Shaw Festival.David CooperBut in Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson’s complete revamp along feminist lines for the Shaw Festival, there’s little left of the original but the gaslit Victorian setting and the general theme of mind control. Even that is now a two-way street. Bella (Julie Lumsden) soon understands what Jack (André Morin) is doing, and fashions a plan to turn the tables. With no police detective in sight, she must rescue herself, with just a doughty maid (Kate Hennig) to help.Normally when producers find material broadly objectionable, I think they should simply not produce it. (There are plenty of new plays that need to be staged.) This “Gaslight,” though, makes a convincing case for the renovation, not because it is palatable to our tastes but because it is so satisfying as genre drama. It doesn’t hurt that the production, directed by Kelli Fox, is taut and luscious — the set and costumes are by Judith Bowden — with Lumsden particularly compelling as a woman waking up to her powers.Whether the revision can become a new classic is yet to be seen. It could certainly take a shot at Broadway, where the original, under the title “Angel Street,” ran for three years in the 1940s.But which works manage to last, and why, remains a great mystery. Though it certainly helps to have Shakespeare on the title page, even he is buckling under pressures of representation and fairness. “The Merchant of Venice” is antisemitic, “The Taming of the Shrew” is sexist, “Othello” is arguably both sexist and racist.This year seems to find “Richard III” on the block. When it opened the first Stratford festival in 1953, no one blinked at having Alec Guinness, who was not disabled, play a king who famously was. But when the play, in a nice touch of symmetry, opened the new Tom Patterson this summer, in a production starring Colm Feore — he’s Donna Feore’s husband — I felt torn. I had just seen the Public Theater’s garbled take in Central Park, in which Danai Gurira played the title role without any acknowledgment of Richard’s disability.Colm Feore in “Richard III” at Stratford. His performance, our critic writes, is “superb in a very cool and traditional reading.”David HouFeore more than acknowledges Richard’s body. In some ways that’s what this production, directed by Antoni Cimolino, Stratford’s artistic director, is about. Cimolino frames the action with the discovery of what is most likely the king’s skeleton in 2013. Feore walks with one leg turned at almost a 90-degree angle, causing him to lurch wildly and, at some performances, fall over. If that weren’t enough to make plain the importance of disability in this production’s conception of the character, the scoliotic curvature of Richard’s spine is sewn into his costumes, designed by Francesca Callow.One ought not like it. Even if you believe, as I do, that someday everyone should be able to play anyone, there are too many disabled actors who rarely get work to give a plum role like Richard to somebody else.And yet, what can I say? Feore is superb in a very cool and traditional reading of the role. (He barely raises his voice, or needs to, thanks to the Patterson’s phenomenal acoustics.) His internalization of Richard’s disability seems complete, accurate and uncondescending. The supporting cast, most of whom appear in “All’s Well” at alternate performances, is unusually fine, especially the quartet of women whom Richard widows, taunts, haunts, marries or murders. Actually, in this production, it’s a quintet of women: The assassin he hires to do his worst deed — the killing of the boy princes who stand in his way — is no longer James Tyrell but Jane. Chillingly, she is the only person onstage you believe Richard actually loves.Despite that alteration, and the contemporary framing device, this remains a conventional revival in the best sense: It restores the power of the story by keeping faith with its words. That’s what makes all the Canadian revivals I saw so powerful. (Well, OK, there was a middling “Hamlet.”) If there’s something in the air here promoting that quality, it’s the repertory system: Stratford, still returning to full strength after the pandemic shutdown, has 10 productions running this season; Shaw has 11. Talk about maturity! Most things get better the more you do them.Stratford Festival“All’s Well That Ends Well,” “Chicago” and “Richard III” are in repertory through Oct. 30. Stratford, Ontario; stratfordfestival.ca.Shaw Festival“Gaslight” is in repertory through Oct. 8. Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario; shawfest.com. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Theater

      Who Can Play the King? Representation Questions Fuel Casting Debates.

      by

      Should Shakespeare’s Richard III be reserved for disabled actors? Does the character have to be played by a white man? By a man at all? Three recent productions took different tacks.When three of the most prestigious Shakespeare companies in the world staged “Richard III” this summer, each took a different approach to casting its scheming title character in ways that illuminate the fraught debate over which actors should play which roles.At the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, Richard was played by the actor Arthur Hughes, who has radial dysplasia, which means he has a shorter right arm and a missing thumb. The company said it was the first time it had cast a disabled actor to play the character, who describes himself in the opening scene as “deformed.” The production’s director, Gregory Doran, who was until recently the Royal Shakespeare’s artistic director, told The Times of London earlier this year that having actors pretend to be disabled to play “Richard III” would “probably not be acceptable” these days.The Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, took a different tack: It cast Colm Feore, who is not disabled, to play a Richard who has a deformed spine but who is not a hunchback. And in New York City, the Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park went in yet another direction, casting Danai Gurira, a Black woman who does not have a disability, as the duke who schemes and kills his way to the throne of England.Their varying approaches came at a moment when an intense rethinking of the cultural norms around identity, representation, diversity, opportunity, imagination and artistic license have led to impassioned debates, and battles, over casting.It has been decades since major theaters have had white actors play Othello in blackface, and, after years of criticism, performances by white actors playing caricatured Asian roles are growing rarer in theater and film, and are being rethought in opera and ballet.Now there are questions about who should play gay characters (Tom Hanks recently told The New York Times Magazine that today he would, rightly, not be cast as a gay attorney dying of AIDS, as he was in his Academy Award-winning role in the 1993 film “Philadelphia”) or transgender characters (Eddie Redmayne said last year that it had been a “mistake” to play a trans character in 2015’s “The Danish Girl”) or characters of different ethnicities and religions. (Bradley Cooper faced criticism this year for using a prosthetic nose to play the Jewish conductor Leonard Bernstein in a forthcoming biopic.)Tom Hanks recently said that today he would, correctly, not be cast as a gay attorney dying of AIDS, as he was in the film “Philadelphia,” which he starred in with Denzel Washington.TriStar PicturesWhile many celebrate the move away from old, sometimes stereotyped portrayals and the new opportunities belatedly being given to actors from a diverse array of backgrounds, others worry that the current insistence on literalism and authenticity can be too constraining. Acting, after all, is the art of pretending to be someone you are not.“The essential nature of art is freedom,” said the Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham, whose many credits include Shylock, the Jewish moneylender of Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” though Mr. Abraham is not Jewish. “Once we impose any kind of control over it, it’s no longer free.”And while the recent insistence on more authentic casting promises greater diversity in some respects, it threatens less in others — coming as many women and actors of color are getting more opportunities to play some of the greatest, meatiest roles in the repertory, regardless of whatever race or gender or background the playwrights may have initially envisioned.More About on Deaf CultureUpending Perceptions: The poetic art of Christine Sun Kim, who was born deaf, challenges viewers to reconsider how they hear and perceive the world.‘Coda’: The Oscar-winning film showcases deaf actors and lives. But some deaf viewers found its hearing perspective frustrating. Seeking Representation: Though deafness is gaining visibility onscreen, deaf people who rely on hearing devices say their experiences remain mostly untold. Name Signs: Name signs are the equivalent of a first name in some sign languages. We asked a few people to share the story behind theirs.Sometimes such casting is considered “colorblind,” in which case audiences are asked to look beyond an actor’s race or ethnicity, or other features. But in recent years the trend has been toward “color-conscious” casting, in which an actor’s race, ethnicity or identity becomes part of the production, and a feature of the character being portrayed.The casting of Mr. Hughes in a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Britain was hailed as the first time the company had cast a disabled actor in the title role.Ellie Kurttz, via Royal Shakespeare CompanySome of the varied approaches were underscored by this summer’s productions of “Richard III,” and the different directions each theater took when choosing an actor to play Richard.Richard tells the audience in the opening scene that he is:Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my timeInto this breathing world, scarce half made up,And that so lamely and unfashionableThat dogs bark at me as I halt by themThe remark by Mr. Doran, the director of the Royal Shakespeare Company production, that it would “probably not be acceptable” these days to have actors pretend to be disabled to play Richard caused a stir in theater circles.Not only is Mr. Doran a renowned Shakespearean, but his husband, Antony Sher, who died last year, was one of the most memorable Richards of recent decades, using crutches in an acclaimed 1984 production and writing a book about his portrayal.Mr. Doran, whose production in Stratford-upon-Avon was critically lauded, later clarified his thinking about its casting, explaining that while any actor might be a successful Richard, he believed the role should be reserved for disabled actors until they “have the opportunities across the board now more widely afforded to other actors.”The new staging in Stratford, Ontario, featuring Mr. Feore, listed a “disability consultant” in its credits. His depiction was inspired by the discovery of Richard’s bones nearly a decade ago — the skeleton suggested a form of scoliosis — and rested on the idea that his physique “was less of a medical disability than a social and cultural one,” the company’s spokeswoman, Ann Swerdfager, said in an email. The critic Karen Fricker wrote in The Toronto Star: “As much as I admired Feore’s performance, it did lead me to wonder if this will be the last able-bodied actor making a star turn as a disabled character on the Stratford stage, given crucial conversations currently happening around deaf and disability performance.”And in New York, Ms. Gurira, who has appeared in “Black Panther” and the television series “The Walking Dead,” tried to explore the underlying reasons for Richard’s behavior. “There is a psychological reason for what he becomes,” she said in an interview. “He’s looking at the rules in front of him, and he feels he’s most capable, but the rules disallow him from manifesting his full capability.”The production’s director, Robert O’Hara, said that they made Richard’s difference key to the interpretation. “Richard’s otherness becomes an entire reason for his behavior,” he said in an interview. “He feels like now he has to play a part people projected onto him.”Ms. Gurira, left, said her approach to Richard aimed to get at the “psychological reason for what he becomes.” She appeared with Daniel J. Watts, right.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe rest of the cast for the production, which ended its run earlier this month, was notably diverse, and included several actors with disabilities in roles that are not usually cast that way. Ali Stroker, a Tony-winning actress who uses a wheelchair, played Lady Anne; Monique Holt, who is Deaf, played Richard’s mother, the two typically communicating onstage via American Sign Language.“I wanted to open up the conversation from ‘Why isn’t Richard being played by a disabled actor?’ to ‘Why isn’t every role considered able to be played by a disabled actor?’” Mr. O’Hara said.Ayanna Thompson, a professor of English at Arizona State University and a Shakespeare scholar in residence at the Public Theater who consulted on its “Richard III,” argued that the growing embrace of color-conscious casting reflected contemporary understandings of how different attributes inflect both actors’ identities and audiences’ perceptions.“All of our bodies carry meaning on stage, whether or not we want to acknowledge that. And that’s going to affect storytelling,” Ms. Thompson said.She pointed to an example from another play: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, friends of Hamlet’s, whom other characters often confuse for each other. “If Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are played by Black actors and the Hamlet family is all-white,” she said, “the inability to distinguish carries a whole set of different meanings.”Many productions upend traditional casting to interrogate classics. Women played every role in a trilogy of acclaimed Shakespeare productions directed by Phyllida Lloyd at Donmar Warehouse in London, seen in New York at St. Ann’s Warehouse. A “Julius Caesar” directed by Mr. Doran reset the scene from ancient Rome to modern Africa. Even Hollywood has reimagined some blockbusters, as with the gender-swapped 2016 “Ghostbusters.”Harriet Walter, with hands outstretched, in a 2013 production of “Julius Caesar,” in which all of the roles were played by women. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut as there is a push for greater casting freedoms in some areas, there is an argument for more literalism in others, especially from actors with certain backgrounds who lack opportunities.Some disabled actors are upset when they see Richard III, one of the juiciest disabled characters in the canon, go to someone else. “We all want a level playing field where everybody can play everybody,” said Mat Fraser, an English actor who is disabled and has played Richard, “but my entire career I’ve not been allowed to play hardly anybody.”In 2016, while accepting an Emmy for his turn as a transgender character in “Transparent,” Jeffrey Tambor said that he hoped to be “the last cisgender male to play a transgender female.” Now, with a “Transparent” stage musical being created in Los Angeles, its creator, Joey Soloway, vowed in an interview: “No trans person should be played by a cis person. Zero tolerance.”The conversation on casting has been evolving in recent years.“It used to be that part of the measurement of greatness was your ability to transform yourself,” said Isaac Butler, the author of “The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act,” a new history of Method acting. “Is versatility still the hallmark of good acting? And how do you approach it if there are certain identity lines you cannot cross? And which are those identity lines?”Gregg Mozgala, left, an actor with cerebral palsy, says he has to bring his “full humanity to every character I play.” He appeared with Jolly Abraham in 2017 in a production of the play “Cost of Living.” Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesGregg Mozgala, an actor with cerebral palsy, has played roles that are not traditionally portrayed as disabled, as he did playing two monarchs in “Richard III” in New York, and sometimes plays characters written as having cerebral palsy, as he will this fall in a Broadway production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Cost of Living.”“I spent years trying to pretend my disability didn’t exist in life and onstage, which is ridiculous, because it does,” Mr. Mozgala said.“Every character I ever play is going to have cerebral palsy — there’s nothing I can do about that,” he added. “I have to bring my full humanity to every character I play.”Some still hold out hope for a day when identity will recede in the conversation.“A hundred years from now, do I hope white actors could play Othello?” said Oskar Eustis, the Public Theater’s artistic director. “Sure, because it would mean racism wasn’t the explosive issue it is now.” More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Theater

      Review: Danai Gurira Makes a Sleek Supervillain of Richard III

      by

      At Shakespeare in the Park, athletic stamina and action-hero charisma muddy the meaning of a play about disability.Richard of Gloucester may be the killingest character in Shakespeare, personally knocking off or precipitating the deaths of more than a dozen people who get in his way. To be fair, he does so over the course of three plays, while top competitors like Macbeth and Titus Andronicus have just one.Still, lacking a prophecy, a particular vengeance or a bloody-minded wife to flesh out his motives, Richard remains the most mysterious in his evil; to make a success of the fabulous mess that is “Richard III,” you must decide what to do about that.The tonally wobbly and workmanlike revival that opened on Sunday at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park doesn’t decide. Whether Richard chooses his evil in reaction to the world’s revulsion — a “lump of foul deformity” is one of the nicer descriptions of him — or whether he was merely born to be bad is a question the Public Theater production, starring the tireless Danai Gurira as Richard, does not reach. We never learn what Richard means by the word “determined” when, in his first speech, he says that “since I cannot prove a lover/I am determined to prove a villain.” Is he bent on villainy, or was he pre-bent?Actually, in Robert O’Hara’s staging, that speech no longer comes first. In a sign that he will focus on action and not psychology, O’Hara instead opens with the gruesome final scene of “Henry VI, Part III,” the immediately preceding play in Shakespeare’s chronicle of 15th-century royal intrigue. In O’Hara’s characteristically droll take on awfulness, Richard coolly stabs King Henry to death, for good measure stuffing the corpse’s mouth with the royal pennant and wiping his knife on it too.As a means of showing us that Richard intends to replace the Lancasters on the throne with the Yorks — including, as soon as possible, himself — this is highly effective. And Gurira, the fierce General Okoye of the “Black Panther” films, certainly never disappoints as an action hero. Looking like a supervillain in black knee-high boots and stretch denim trousers, with her hair shaved into heraldic patterns, she is unflaggingly energetic, vocally thrilling and, as events become more hectic, more and more convincing.But for much of the play, the flash and fury of her performance, with its surface swagger and glary stares, too often feel like decoys. As Richard schemes his way from the sidelines to the throne, dispatching two young princes along the way, we get his gall but not his emotion, even as his words tell us that he understands the monstrousness of his methods. “Was ever woman in this humor wooed?” he asks after proposing marriage to Lady Anne, whose husband he has just murdered. As staged by O’Hara, the seduction is humorous in the comic sense too, involving a trick knife, a humongous ring, and a moment when Richard, sitting on the corner of the bier, brushes some part of the inconvenient body aside as if it were a crumb.From left, Richard’s aggrieved mother, the Duchess of York (Monique Holt), with Anne (Ali Stroker) and the ensemble member Thaddeus S. Fitzpatrick in “Richard III.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAnd bodies, not just body counts, are crucial in “Richard III.” It’s worth noting that Ali Stroker, this production’s Anne, uses a wheelchair. Richard’s aggrieved mother, the Duchess of York (Monique Holt), uses sign language. So does one of the assassins, played by Maleni Chaitoo. Gregg Mozgala, in two important roles — Edward IV, who succeeds the dead Henry, and Richmond, the play’s hero, who eventually kills Richard — has cerebral palsy.Though they all have excellent moments, the admirably diverse casting only underlines for me the problem of a Richard who is not disabled. For centuries, of course, that has been the norm; mostly the role has been played by actors sporting more-or-less absurd humps, lumps, prostheses and braces to simulate the “bunch-back’d toad” described in the text. When Arthur Hughes, an actor with radial dysplasia, took the role at the Royal Shakespeare Company this summer, he was thought to be the first disabled person ever to do so at that theater.It is nice to dream of a time when disabled actors are employed so frequently, and in so many kinds of roles, that we need not discourage others from playing this one. And it’s true that the historical Richard probably suffered from nothing more than scoliosis, as an analysis of his recently discovered skeleton suggests. Shakespeare, I’ve said before, was a poet, not an osteopath.But what was once the norm can now seem a kind of ableist mummery, which this production attempts to sidestep by offering a Richard with no physical impairments at all. When other characters, and even the man himself, scorn his disabilities and mock his ugliness, we are forced by the evidence of our senses to treat the derision metaphorically. (Richard, we tell ourselves, is morally toadlike, not physically so.) And though I usually enjoy being asked to see familiar characters in unfamiliar skins, in this case the sidestep blocks access to the deepest elements of the drama.Those elements are what keep the otherwise ragged “Richard III” in the repertory. The verse is extraordinarily pungent and the questions obviously eternal. When a production has us asking to what extent Richard’s evil is the product of people’s hatred of him, as opposed to his prior hatred of himself, it forces us to ask the same of our own leaders. In this season of our discontent, the scene in which Richard cynically holds up a Bible as a ginned-up crowd clamors to make him king is one you may find familiar.Though we don’t get to ask those profound questions in this production, there are nevertheless compensations. The staging itself is lovely, with Myung Hee Cho’s revolving circles of gothic arches speeding the action and suggesting the inexorability of Richard’s rise and fall. (The arches are lit in beautiful pinks and purples by Alex Jainchill.) Dede Ayite’s witty mixed-period costumes score sociological points at a glance, from Anne’s tacky trophy-wife regalia to the doomed young princes’ spangly gold sneakers.Glistening too are some of the performers in secondary roles, which, in this play, means all roles but Richard. Sanjit De Silva turns Buckingham, the king’s chief enabler, into a hopped-up hype man, high on the fumes of ambient amorality. Paul Niebanck makes a powerful impression as Richard’s brother George, who incorrectly believes he can talk his way out of anything. And as Queen Margaret, the widow of Henry, Sharon Washington demonstrates with brutal efficiency how specific hatred can soon become general, blistering everyone, even herself, in its path.But these coherently interpreted characters do not add up to a coherent interpretation of the play, which wobbles between shouty polemics and a kind of Tudor snark. It may be that “Richard III” is in that sense uninterpretable; written to flatter Shakespeare’s royal sponsors, who were descendants of the victorious Richmond, its brilliance has always borne the sour odor of propaganda. That sourness is not sweetened by the fact that, to modern noses, the good guys smell a lot like the bad ones. If history plays cannot untangle for us what history itself leaves a jumble, they should at least help us figure out why.Richard IIIThrough July 17 at the Delacorte Theater, Manhattan; publictheater.org. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Theater

      The ‘Most Real Richard III There’s Ever Been’

      by

      The Royal Shakespeare Company has cast a disabled actor to play the “deformed, unfinish’d” king for the first time. The choice has been hailed as a landmark moment.STRATFORD-UPON-AVON, England — A raucous party was underway in one of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s rehearsal rooms this month as the cast of “Richard III” ran through the play’s opening, dancing in a conga line while music blared and balloons bounced off the floor.Off to one side, the future Richard III sneered at the scene. Shakespeare depicted the king as a scheming hunchback who murdered his way to the British throne, and in this imagining of the play, he is personified by the 30-year-old actor Arthur Hughes. In role, Hughes stepped into the middle of the party, veering through the revelers to deliver the play’s famed opening speech: “Now is the winter of our discontent,” he began.As the speech continues, Richard lists the insults he has faced. He is “curtail’d of this fair proportion”; he is “cheated of feature”; he is “deformed, unfinish’d.” As Hughes declaimed each barb, he angrily squeezed a white balloon. Eventually the pressure became too much. The balloon popped.The moment of tension was made even more powerful by Hughes’s own appearance. He has radial dysplasia, meaning he was born with a shorter right arm, his wrist bending into the body and his hand missing a thumb.The first casting by the Royal Shakespeare Company of a disabled actor to play Richard III has been hailed as an advance in British theater. The play opened in Stratford-upon-Avon on Thursday and runs through Oct. 8.“You can see a despot and tyrant,” Hughes said of Richard III, “but also a little boy who hasn’t been loved and someone who’s shunned.”Ellie Kurttz, via Royal Shakespeare CompanyShakespeare used and amplified Richard III’s real-life condition — the king is thought to have had scoliosis or curvature of the spine — to highlight the character’s unsavory nature. (He is described at one point as a “pois’nous bunch-back’d toad.”) According to Gregory Doran, the director of the current adaptation, the casting of Hughes in the role “sends out a big message, just as not casting a disabled actor would have sent out a different message.”Hughes’s casting comes as the frequency of disabled actors earning major roles appears to be growing in British theater. In July, the National Theater will present “All of Us” by Francesca Martinez, an actor and playwright who has cerebral palsy (Martinez said in a telephone interview that the play would feature three disabled actors, including herself). And Liz Carr, who uses a wheelchair, this year won an Olivier Award, Britain’s equivalent of a Tony, for her performance in Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” at the National.In her Olivier acceptance speech, Carr highlighted some persistent problems. “There’s so many fears of risk of employing disabled actors,” she said, but added the award “proves we can do it, we can project, we can fill a stage.”Jack Thorne, the playwright behind “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” and an activist for disabled people, said in a telephone interview that there was “definitely a willingness” to expand disabled casting in Britain. The National Theater was a leader, he said, as were six regional theaters behind an initiative called Ramps on the Moon that stages productions led by deaf and disabled actors.Yet there was still a dearth of lead roles in London’s commercial heartland, he said. “There aren’t West End shows with disabled leads,” he added. In discussions about diversity, the issue was routinely forgotten, he said. Theaters should bring in targets to increase participation, he said.The National Theater, for instance, has experimented with aspirational quotas for women and people of color, but not for disabled people. Alastair Coomer, the theater’s head of casting, said in a telephone interview that new targets were being discussed and that he “would not be surprised” if that discrepancy was addressed.Hughes in a Royal Shakespeare Company costume storeroom. “Richard III” plays in the company’s repertoire through Oct. 8.Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesHughes, eating potato chips in a break from rehearsal, said he hoped his casting as Richard III “sets the mold for how the industry can change.”Growing up in Aylesbury, a town about 40 miles northwest of London, Hughes said that he had experienced few barriers to pursuing acting. As a child, he said, he was so enthusiastic in drama classes that he was given prime roles, such as Puck in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”Hughes said that he had read “Richard III” for the first time while looking for speeches to use when auditioning for drama schools. He instantly identified with the role, he added, since the play’s characters view the future king as “not cut out for big parts” because of his looks. “I was like, ‘Oh, that’s me,’” Hughes said.After drama school, Hughes did not immediately secure an agent — unlike many of his colleagues. “Voices in my head were going, ‘Are you a risk?’” he said, but those doubts lifted after he secured a role in a production by Graeae, a British theater company that casts deaf and disabled actors. Before then, Hughes said, he felt his appearance “was going to hold me back,” but after being surrounded by other disabled actors, he felt empowered. He even started wearing short sleeves to highlight his limb difference, he added.The Royal Shakespeare Company show is Hughes’s most high-profile casting to date. In May, Doran gave an interview to The Times of London that was headlined: “Able-Bodied Actors Cannot Be Richard III.” In a letter of complaint to that newspaper, Doran said that the headline was misleading. His point, he wrote, was that, although anybody could play the role, a disabled actor could “enhance the performance and impact of the production.”Richard III is often portrayed as an almost comedic bad guy, Hughes said, often with a fake “hump and limp.” While not trying to hide the character’s villainy, he hoped to draw attention to his motivations: “You can see a despot and tyrant,” he said, “but also a little boy who hasn’t been loved and someone who’s shunned and outcast and is underestimated.”Mat Fraser, another disabled actor, who played Richard III in a production in Hull in northern England in 2017, said that the king was often played by older performers who could make the king seem a “withered little twig.” But Hughes is young and muscular — better suited to portraying a monarch who died at age 32 on a battlefield, Fraser said. “We’re going to see the most real Richard III there’s ever been,” he added.Hughes said he was already looking beyond his turn as Richard to other Shakespeare roles, and would love to play Hamlet, and Iago from “Othello.”“I’d like to play a role that’s not specified as disabled,” he said. “Obviously, whichever role I play will be disabled by the very nature of me playing it,” he added. “But that’s not the point.”Richard IIIThrough Oct. 8 at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England; rsc.org.uk. More

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Theater

      Danai Gurira Will Star as Richard III at Shakespeare in the Park

      by

      The actress, known for “The Walking Dead” and “Black Panther,” will headline a return to semi-normal for the annual festival, which will also present “As You Like It.”The Public Theater, anticipating a semi-normal summer this year, is planning two full-scale productions for Free Shakespeare in the Park, including a run of “Richard III” starring Danai Gurira in the title role.The annual festival, ordinarily a highlight of summer in New York, took place via radio in 2020 (the play was “Richard II”), and then last year featured a single, small-cast show before a reduced-capacity audience (it was called “Merry Wives” — even the title was abbreviated) as the theater tried to adapt to shifting safety protocols necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic.Both pivots won praise, but this summer the Public is ready to go big again, with a two-show season and full-capacity audiences. “Richard III” will feature a cast of about two dozen, and it will be followed by a reprise of the Public’s 2017 production of “As You Like It,” which, by featuring New Yorkers from all five boroughs alongside professional actors, will have a cast of several hundred.“Last summer was a lifesaver, and this summer is going to be a huge shot of energy,” Oskar Eustis, the Public’s ebullient artistic director, pledged in an interview. “We are planning to have a full summer and to produce in as large and vibrant a scale as we ever have.”Of course, the pandemic’s not over, and there will be rules. At the moment, the Public is still planning to require patrons to show proof of vaccination, including a booster shot for those who are eligible, and to require mask wearing by patrons. Also, Eustis said the goal will be to keep both productions short enough that they can be performed without an intermission, which means some serious trimming for “Richard III,” originally one of Shakespeare’s longest plays.The production of “Richard III” will be directed by Robert O’Hara (“Slave Play”), who is no stranger to trimming — his halved production of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is now running at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theater downtown.Eustis said that he and O’Hara chose “Richard III” because it has not been seen at Shakespeare in the Park for many years, and because it felt relevant.“Let’s just say that ‘Richard III’ is the artistic work that for the first time really examined a political figure who utterly committed to the big lie — whose entire career is based on telling blatant falsehoods and somehow getting away with it,” Eustis said. “The idea that showmanship, devoid of content, has become a powerful political force makes it very germane for this moment.”Gurira, Eustis said, was an obvious choice to star: Best known for “The Walking Dead” and “Black Panther,” she is also an accomplished playwright (“Eclipsed”), a member of the Public’s board and a Shakespeare in the Park alumna (“Measure for Measure”).“She is a great actress who has become super-famous without people necessarily seeing the work she’s greatest at,” Eustis said. “Richard III is a spectacularly theatrical and rich character to play, and somebody with her ferocity and intelligence is going to make a spectacular Richard.”Darius de Haas, center, as a banished duke with a welcoming message in the 2017 Public Works production of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAnd what will it mean to have a woman play Richard? “We are not going to re-gender the role, but what that means exactly we won’t know until we’re doing run-throughs,” Eustis said. “I know where we’re starting, but that doesn’t mean we know where we’re ending.”“Richard III” has been staged at Shakespeare in the Park four times previously, most recently in 1990, starring Denzel Washington.This summer’s production of “As You Like It” is a remounting of a production that had a short run in 2017, staged as part of the theater’s Public Works program, which integrates amateur performers from throughout New York City into musical adaptations of Shakespeare plays. In the years since it was created at the Public, this adaptation has been staged 35 times in school, community and professional theaters, including at the Dallas Theater Center, Seattle Repertory Theater, and the National Theater in London. The Public had hoped to give it a full run in 2020, but the pandemic prevented that.This “As You Like It” was adapted by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery; Taub wrote the music and lyrics, and Woolery is the director, with choreography by Sonya Tayeh (“Moulin Rouge!”). As with the earlier version, this summer’s production will feature Darius de Haas, Joel Perez and Taub.The dates for the two productions, as well as the full casts, will be announced later.Shakespeare in the Park has since 1962 been staged at the 1,830-seat Delacorte Theater in Central Park, and last week the city Landmarks Preservation Commission approved plans for a $77 million renovation of the theater. Construction is expected to begin this fall, after the summer season ends; Eustis said that he is hopeful that construction can be phased and contained to off-season periods, so that Shakespeare in the Park can continue without further interruptions. More

    • 125 Shares159 Views

      in Theater

      Critic's Pick: 'Seize the King,' Harlem Theater's 'Richard III'

      by

      It’s a tale that Will Power intends as cautionary, with cycles of history and human violence in mind.Have you been ravenous, lo these many shutdown months, for the layered richness of live theatrical design? The Classical Theater of Harlem has just the thing to sate your hunger.Ambitious design is one of the hallmarks of this company, and it is an absolute joy to encounter it again in such fine form in Will Power’s “Seize the King,” a contemporary verse spin on “Richard III,” in Marcus Garvey Park.The brothers Christopher and Justin Swader, old hands at transfiguring the utilitarian stage of the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, frame Carl Cofield’s production with a set that is both monumental and minimalist, aglow with Alan C. Edwards’s canny lighting. In the gathering dusk, we gaze on its stony surfaces and square-edged sconces, and enchantment begins even before the show does.It’s a strange word, enchantment, to apply to the story of a duke so hellbent on his own sovereignty that he will murder the 12-year-old nephew who stands in his way — a tale that Power intends as cautionary, with cycles of history and human violence in mind.“The evil in men always resurfaces,” a narrator (Carson Elrod) warns at the start, as the stage walls fill with Brittany Bland’s projections of slave ships and war.Yet there is something inherently spellbinding right now about sitting outdoors in the dark with other humans, and the occasional blinking firefly, watching a performance unfold with doubling and dance.Alisha Espinosa plays Lady Anne, who marries Richard with close to no illusions after he courts her brazenly in her bath. Richard TermineI caught the first preview of the run, since the previous night’s show had been rained out. Because of that, some performances may have been a little tentative. So when I tell you that Ro Boddie, as Richard, lacks the charisma of a scheming antihero who seeks to draw us into his confidence — well, he may grow more comfortable in the role.The same applies to Alisha Espinosa as Edward V, the young heir to the throne, who needs to but does not bruise our hearts. She makes a far better fit as the calculating Lady Anne, who marries Richard with close to no illusions after he courts her brazenly in her bath — a makeover of one of the tackiest wooing scenes in Shakespeare. Kudos, by the way, for the costume designer Mika Eubanks’s neat trick of having Anne’s outfit in that tub scene stand in for frothy bubbles.This production is more adept overall at conveying the play’s humor than its heft: the waste of innocent lives in service of vain rulers, the need for vigilance against the resurgence of the vanquished.Yet the other three principal actors (Andrea Patterson, RJ Foster and Elrod), move easily between comedy and woe, and deliver Power’s complex verse with remarkable clarity. Especially in the scenes they share, they are fun to watch.Dance, a regular feature of Classical Theater of Harlem productions, is used here to extraordinary effect. Choreographed by Tiffany Rea-Fisher with her customary grace, it is woven more deeply than usual into the storytelling — as when we watch the death of the old king, Edward IV, enacted wordlessly — and into the mood of the performance. (Music is by Frederick Kennedy, who also did the very effective sound design.)Dance, a regular feature of Classical Theater of Harlem productions, is used to extraordinary effect. Richard TermineIt is impossible to fully separate the art of theater-making in this chrysalis-shedding moment from the relief we feel simply to be experiencing it. So I will tell you that I felt full in an unexpected way after “Seize the King.” To which, incidentally, admission is free.It was not perfect, and it did not have to be. It was live, it contained multitudes of beauty, and it felt like luxury.Seize the KingThrough July 29 at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, Manhattan; cthnyc.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Theater

      Lost in 2020: Epic Shakespeare, and the Theater That Planned It

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookLost in 2020: Epic Shakespeare, and the Theater That Planned ItBrave Spirits Theater expected to mount an ambitious cycle of eight history plays. Instead it became yet another victim of the pandemic.Brendan Edward Kennedy, center, in the title role of “Henry V” at Brave Spirits Theater in Virginia.Credit…Claire KimballDec. 29, 2020I’ve written several versions of this story. First it was supposed to be an account of a small theater company’s ambitious stage project, then a story about that interrupted project and the company’s plan to regroup because of the pandemic. Now it’s an elegy for a small theater that the coronavirus shut down.On a bright but chilly Saturday afternoon in February, I hopped on a train to Alexandria, Va., just outside of Washington. I was visiting Brave Spirits Theater, which was presenting the first part of a bold endeavor: staging eight of Shakespeare’s history plays (the two tetralogies, from “Richard II” to “Richard III”) in repertory, over the course of 18 months, culminating in a marathon performance of all eight works.I was there to see the first two plays in the series, beginning with a matinee performance of “Richard II.” On the car from the train station, I peeked at the quiet suburbs of Alexandria — brick houses with wraparound porches, American flags by the door — until I arrived at the theater, which channeled the small-town whimsy of a playhouse in a storybook. The space, a converted church building, had pale yellow columns out front and bright turquoise trim around the windows, with red accents throughout.Charlene V. Smith, a co-founder of Brave Spirits. Credit…Greg Kahn for The New York TimesCharlene V. Smith, who co-founded Brave Spirits in 2011, told me that the idea for the project occurred to her in 2008, when she saw the Royal Shakespeare Company in London do a marathon performance of the histories. Brave Spirits was claiming to be making history by being the “first professional American theater company to mount full productions of Shakespeare’s two history plays tetralogies and perform them in repertory.”A few feet away from where we were sitting, in one corner of the lobby, was a chalkboard. Four calendar months were neatly drawn in perfectly symmetrical boxes — January, February, March, April — with a color-coded schedule of performances of the first tetralogy, which the company named “The King’s Shadow”: Richard in bright red, the first Henry in clover green, the second Henry in yellow and the last Henry in a crisp, royal purple.In a humble but well-done production, Brave Spirits had Richard II crowned and killed, and his successor, Henry Bolingbroke, a.k.a. Henry IV, was named the new king. After the audience left, the cast milled around the space, chatting in the kitchen, which doubled as the box office. “Is your bag of heads upstairs?” I heard someone call out from the hall. A few wore shirts that were being sold by the company, black tees with gray block lettering that read “Richard & Henry & Henry & Henry & Richard.” (Ever the Shakespeare nerd, I bought one.)That evening I saw “Henry IV, Part I,” and every seat was filled. Older couples and families and a couple of teens gabbed and waved at one another; everyone was a local. I left on the train the next morning, still buzzed with the energy in that tiny converted church.I wrote the article, but before it was published the pandemic shut down the performing arts across the nation, and the story of Brave Spirits changed. Like many other theaters, it was forced to cut short the histories project, which DC Metro Theater Arts predicted would be “one of the must-sees of the 2021 season.” April 19-20 was supposed to be a big weekend for the company, when all of the plays in the first tetralogy would be staged in repertory, ending in the capstone of the first half, “Henry V.”From left, Tom Howley, Duane Richards, and Michael Bannigan Jr. in “Henry V.”Credit…Claire KimballJacqueline Chenault, left, as Alice, and Nicole Ruthmarie as Princess Katherine in “Henry V.”Credit…Claire KimballJohn Stange, above, as Henry Bolingbroke and Gary DuBreuil as the title character in “Richard II.”Credit…Claire KimballOn March 12, Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia declared a state of emergency and, shortly after, the White House issued a proclamation declaring Covid-19 a national emergency. Brave Spirits decided to cancel the marathon weekend but still go out with one last performance — the opening-night show of “Henry V.”“At that point,” Smith said when I checked back in with her in late April, “people had put so much into it that everyone was like: ‘We need to open “Henry V.” We need that opening-night performance tomorrow. We just need it.’” Brendan Edward Kennedy reported that after the show, in his dressing room, he started to sing the wartime ballad “We’ll Meet Again.” (“We’ll meet again/Don’t know where/Don’t know when.”) He sang it briefly to me on the phone.After that “Henry V,” the theater froze: costumes still on racks and props in bins, stored under the audience risers. As for the tools of war — swords, spears — Smith had them stored for safekeeping in her home in McLean, Va.The theater put up a fight through the spring and summer; an annual fund-raiser netted over $7,000, compared with its usual $3,000, giving the cast and crew some hope. (Smith told me the company’s annual budget was around $50,000, but for the first histories project season it was tripled, to roughly $150,000.)For several weeks, the cast kept up with online script readings and planned for a fall with more virtual rehearsals until, they hoped, they would come back with the second half of the project in January 2021.That was supposed to be my new story: one about a small theater enduring despite the consequences — something that captured the stakes and scope of the difficulties but that still ultimately ended up being about hope and resilience.By this point you already know that’s not the story I’m telling now, 10 months after I first visited Virginia and nine months since the lockdown began. On Nov. 21, Brave Spirits announced its closure: “Without the ability to plan for future performances, Brave Spirits is unable to recover financially from the loss of Shakespeare’s Histories,” a news release stated, the last two words in bold as though spoken through a megaphone.Brave Spirits produced more than 20 plays and employed over 300 artists, and was known for its quietly subversive interpretations of classics, usually through a feminist lens. But the company announced it had one parting gift: audio recordings of the plays in the histories project, which they hope will come out in late 2021. It’s hard not to think of it as another reminder of all the things the coronavirus destroyed in just a couple of months.Brave Spirits Theater, which was housed in a former church.Credit…Greg Kahn for The New York TimesThe fact that Brave Spirits lost this battle would have been sad enough if it weren’t also so utterly, ironically Shakespearean. This spring, during a follow-up call with Kennedy, I asked the actor how he had attacked King Henry V’s famous St. Crispin’s Day speech.The speech is usually said to fanfare and fireworks. King Henry V, no longer the childish, mischievous Prince Hal, has become the brilliant leader, inspiring his men to perform a feat of greatness. Kennedy said that their approach to this scene was a bit different — a glorious moment that is nevertheless fatalistic, with the soldiers fully understanding the cost of war.Kennedy told me that he and Smith had imagined the soldiers’ bleak logic: “‘Let’s go out in a blaze of glory, and let’s hit them so hard that people are going to be talking about this for centuries. They’re gonna remember all of our names, and this deed is going to make us heroes in the annals of history.’” Kennedy was aware of the parallels — that, like the soldiers on St. Crispin’s Day, he and his fellow actors were going into the performance aware of “the possibility that this could be the last time that we ever do this.”The end of Brave Spirits isn’t the story I wanted to end up with. And yet this small theater in Virginia, which persevered until it couldn’t any longer, is just one of many that won’t make it out of 2020. It’s a shame, not just the closure itself, but the fact that the circumstances that led to it were preventable: The government’s poor response to the pandemic, and our country’s general refusal to value and subsidize the arts as it should, guaranteed that some theaters wouldn’t survive.I thought back to that day in February, when after I interviewed the cast, they celebrated a colleague’s birthday with pizza and cake and a round of “Happy Birthday” in the theater’s lobby.I packed up as quickly as I could, not wanting to interrupt, but they had happily forgotten me. Their conversations and laughter filled the space, a separate world and a safe haven for a community of artists. However briefly, I felt that. But this is all I can offer: the image of kings on a stage, a church-turned-theater in Virginia, a post-show pizza party. With Brave Spirits now closed, it’s all I have, and I wish it were enough.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More