Digging Up Richard III

With the recent discovery of Richard III’s remains renewing interest in this King’s controversial life, what better time for a WUDS production of Shakespeare’s history play. It’s a tough project as Richard III is a long slog, Shakespeare’s second longest after Hamlet, and in our world of short attention spans and even shorter YouTube clips there is an increasing strain on longer performances to captivate us.

Set in the 1950s, upturned tables and chairs on stage indicated a chaotic and dangerous world. The stage itself, with bare walls and empty wire, was like the emptiness inside a tyrant: the lack of mercy or human feeling that lets us call people ‘monsters’. The stage became the interior of a regal mind; we were offered insight into its interior workings as wordplay bounced off the naked walls. The opening and closing of the door centre of stage became symbolic of imminent death. Here, was an ever-narrowing corridor of power where connections were severed in bloody ways; here was the entrance to Richard’s mind. Executions were often carried out behind closed doors so the audience had to rely on their ears; sound playing the role as an effective story teller.

Richard is slick yet sickening, effective and ruthless, without mercy or sign of regret. Yet he remains one of Shakespeare’s most captivating creations and Euan Kitson’s portrayal was a convincing interpretation, bringing layers of dimension to this complicated character. The list of notable actors who have taken on the title role is daunting, to say the least, and the play itself is renowned as being a one-man show. Kitson walked this hallowed turf and made it fresh. In costume he looked more like a clerk than a king, in a well-pressed suit and wiry glasses. This look made the King’s actions all the more sinister, revealing his pomp and ambition.

The historic Richard III died in battle but this Richard was not a piece on the chess board to be moved around, rather the hand moving the pieces. No swords were needed in this production without epic battle scenes. Instead, violence was carried out through hired hands, biting rhetoric and backstabbing. Surprisingly, there was humour amid the murder – albeit black comedy – in Richard’s dialogue and in his human guillotines, Catesby and Ratcliffe. The rack of his cane across the stage floor signaled death for many but comedy for the audience as this charismatic, strange and endearingly intelligent ‘monster’ said one thing to his fellow lords and another to those looking from their seats.

Although the play is all about its title character, the rest of the cast were able to shine through. Angus Imrie’s earnest portrayal of Clarence on his final night, meant that seeing his body carried out, still dripping, was heart-rending. Harry Wilson impressively carried his humble speech as Buckingham, before he was bagged and shot. Edward Franklin’s metamorphosis from a bumbling Hastings: answering the door to death in a nightgown, to the inwardly tortured instrument of the young prince’s death: Tyrell, testified to the versatility of his acting. The brutal death sequence of the strong female lead, Lady Anne, was effectively acted by Alice Whitehead, whose confusion and struggle in death made the scene all the more affective.

This play, like Kubrick employed so well in film, used sound to its advantage. It forced us to imagine, making horror all the worse and the bloodbath made bloodier by its lack of blood. Only a thump signaled Lady Anne being beaten to death and the pounding of Clarence’s feet was heard as he is drowned. A radio and its jarred output symbolized one-way communication and mistrust in a character who could only transmit on one frequency.

The image of a spider in a jar, bright and red: the poster that stuck out amongst all the others littered around campus. This image was recalled as the King underwent the last moments of his reign in his own, personal bunker syndrome, as the world collapsed around him. Though cunning, in the wake of his misdoings, he became trapped in a box transparent enough for an onlooker to view his slow but inevitable demise. If you stain your hands with enough blood then eventually you will not be able to wipe it off; you will wake up in the night haunted by the ghosts of the deceased who stare through the wire separating the dead and the living. But who is the real monster in this play, the man ordering the killing or the people willing to carry it out? As the spotlight ushers in the Tudor monarchy through Richmond we see the body of Richard slumped in the darkness, but will Richard III come back into the limelight?