Richard 3

Richard 3
By William Shakespeare. Directed by Peter Evans. Bell Shakespeare. Arts Centre, The Fairfax. 20 April – 7 May 2017.

Kate Mulvany’s Richard is the triumphant centrepiece of this fine and original production of Shakespeare’s bit of Tudor propaganda.  No gender-bending: she plays Richard as a man (but we know she’s a woman) – a twisted, small, poisonous man - but such a Protean man: devilish, impish, wheedling, hypocritical, unctuous, vicious, totally ruthless.  Her Richard is a bright, burning nexus of evil; you can’t take your eyes off him.  When he’s not in a scene, he is still somewhere on stage, lurking in the shadows and your anxious eye seeks him out.  But Ms Mulvany creates a moral trap for the audience.  Her Richard is an isolate, a creature alone.  Who are his friends?  His supporters urging him on?  The audience.  He confides in the audience from the start with eloquence and wit, making no excuses for his villainy, rather boasting of it, and not, until the last moments, asking for sympathy, but instead gleefully seducing the audience into conspiracy and approval.  Richard is the most interesting character – and Ms Mulvany is so good that she almost overshadows the rest of the cast.

Elements of this production could so easily not work.  In lesser hands, they would not.  That they do work is what makes this production so provocative and stimulating.  Director Peter Evans has a ‘concept’ and while a director’s concept can take priority and obscure a text, here it is illuminated.  The action all takes place in what looks like the foyer of some vulgar hotel trying too hard to look luxurious – black marble, gold lamps, ‘period’ furniture.  Anna Cordingley’s design suggests that these titled people are temporary interlopers, temporarily powerful, in a tacky milieu.  Furthermore, no one leaves this space: when actors are not directly involved in a scene, they sit or lounge about, blank, waiting.  You can’t help thinking they are trapped.  (Shades of Buñuel’s Exterminating Angel.)  SteveToulmin’s music and Michael Tolsuta’s subtle sound design increase the sense of no escape from uncertainty, threat or doom.   

Except for James Evans as Buckingham, the male actors double up, each playing two or three roles.  Not only is there no confusion – skilled acting and subtle costume changes (Ms Cordingley’s designs again) ensure that – but there is a sense that these fellows are interchangeable whether venal, opportunist, amoral, or merely gullible.  Someone is libelled or exiled or murdered in Richard’s ascent.  Someone takes his place.  The cyclic nature of power is one of Peter Evan’s interpretations and he makes it work.  He even repeats the manic hedonistic image with which the play begins at the start of the second half.

Rose Riley plays the grieving, terrified Lady Anne beautifully, and one of the unfortunate Princes as a gangly boy.  Otherwise, the women do not double up.  The older women, mothers and widows, are vessels of powerless grief.  Queen Margaret (Sandy Gore) curses all with majestic dignity.  Queen Elizabeth (Meredith Penman) can only attempt defiance and the Duchess of York (Sarah Woods) loses two sons and brings a third, the monster Richard into the world. As dramaturg Ms Mulvany has stripped out extraneous action and characters, bringing an icy focus to this study of power – how to get it and who gets it – something worth pondering in current times.

Michael Brindley

Photographer: Prudence Upton.

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