It’s not
often the Shakespeare’s Globe
productions make it to the US, so when they arrive it is cause for riotous
celebration. So … it is with a great
deal of disappointment that I report that the recent production of
Shakespeare’s Richard III at the
Belasco Theatre starring Mark Rylance
(born 1960) is an ill-conceived, ramshackle conception. This is a great shame as Rylance is one of
the most gifted actors of his generation – however, I doubt I have ever seen a
more wrong-headed interpretation of Shakespeare’s crookbacked anti-hero.
Problems
with Richard III start at the top and the rot continues down. As written, Richard is a charming
monster. He revels in his villainy, and
his constant asides to the audience make us complicit in his monstrosity. His ego is enormous and his self-satisfaction
over the most wretched and heinous crimes become droll in his endless
self-regard and delight in manipulation.
In short, it is a role for an actor with a High Comic sensibility.
Sadly,
High Comedy is not in Rylance’s bag of tricks.
He is an expert Low Comedian, and while he does get laughs with Richard,
the overall conception never comes alive.
Imagine Peter Sellers’ Inspector
Clouseau disguised as Richard III, and you get the idea. There is a great deal of business between
Rylance and the audience in the first few rows, where he is mugging for a
response, while some of his most malefic lines are thrown away as
under-the-breath asides. This is not
High Comic villainy, it’s a homicidal Nigel
Bruce. It is a novel approach, but
that is all.
Richard
III is presented in repertory with Twelfth
Night, and in strives to recreate an Elizabethan theatrical
experience. True to the time, all
women’s roles are played by men. I have
seen this work wonderfully well in the past (I recall the troupe Cheek By Jowl in a series of
Shakespearean productions at BAM 20 years ago that were stunning), but the
effect here is more Monty Python
than Renaissance theater. Joseph Timms, as Lady Anne, is so
heavily made up that he seems more like a waxwork figure. (White pancake makeup applied with a trowel,
one would assume, to ape portraits of Elizabeth.) Sad to say that equally dire
is Samuel Barnett, as Queen
Elizabeth, who unfortunately resembles Timms in makeup to such a degree that
it’s almost impossible to tell one from the other.
Richard
the III is really Richard’s play, and there aren’t many other good roles;
however, what is here is poorly played. Angus Wright, as Buckingham, looks and
sounds like Raymond Massey … and is
just as bad an actor. But perhaps the
most egregious offender of the evening is Kurt
Egyiawan as the Duchess of York, and later as Richmond -- in a lifetime of
watching Shakespeare on stage, I have never seen a more wretched performance. Only Liam
Brennan, as Clarence, seems to make something of his part. I hope to see more of him in the future.
Tim Carroll directs and makes rather a hash of
it. The staging is unimaginative and, at
times, simply ridiculous. Troubled by
dreams of his victims, Carroll parades them backstage in white sheets holding
candles; more Our Gang than
Halloween horror. How such a gruesome
play was rendered so bloodless may be the great mystery of this
production. It ends with Richard and
Richmond locked in mortal combat – but it never convinces. Nor does it help that – in an attempt to
create a true Elizabethan experience – the entire cast gather onstage at
curtain’s fall and pad through a clumsy quadrille.
We are
seeing Twelfth Night later this week; it is Stephen Fry’s Broadway debut, and perhaps his intelligence, taste
and sense of fun will positively impact on the production. We can but hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment