Writer; William Shakespeare
Director: Elle While
Michelle Terry promised that her portrayal of Richard III wouldn’t involve her ‘acting’ disabled after receiving criticism that she, as a non-disabled actor, would be playing a disabled character. In 2016, in the BBC’s acclaimed series Hollow Crown, Benedict Cumberbatch played Richard with a convincing prosthetic on his back and staggered around under its implied weight. But a lot has changed since then. In the Globe’s new production, masculinity is Richard’s disability. As childishly petulant as Trump and as conceited as Putin, Terry’s Richard is undone because he is a man.
Sporting a fake torso with pecs and abs and with the Calvin Klein logo of his boxer shorts revealed for all to see, this Richard is reminiscent of the topless photographs Putin once published each year. At the start of the second act, the cast comes onto stage all wearing red baseball caps, a direct reference to Trump’s Make America Great Again headwear. Richard puffs and huffs like the Republican leader at a press conference in Alabama.
Of course, some of this examination of masculinity is already in Shakespeare’s text, most clearly seen when the would-be-king takes Lady Anne as his wife, and then, later, when he tells the Queen his intention to marry her daughter. His reasons for these unions are hardly logical, but he gets his way through the threat that masculinity holds.
But as the Bard intended, there’s also a likeability to Richard with the crocodile tears he sheds in order to take the English crown. Terry milks these moments for all that they’re worth, mugging to the groundlings, on press night, draped in raincoats. Terry’s Richard is an awful specimen of a man, but as the only comic character in the play, the audience warms to him quickly.
Although Richard’s ambitions are lucidly represented in Terry’s capable hands, the rest of the action is often quite confused, even to those familiar with the play. It doesn’t help that the evening feels top-heavy with too much time given to Richard’s machinations in court and not enough given to the battlefield. Richard’s dispatch is decided too quickly and there is not a horse in sight.
Also confusing are the costumes which evoke many eras. Some of the cast wear Elizabethan breeches while Buckingham (a solid Helen Schlesinger, with the addition of a Trump hairstyle) dons a modern-day suit. Bizarrely, the henchmen, who keep throwing Richard’s victims through a trapdoor, are dressed in S&M leather. Perhaps the mixture of fashions is to signify the longevity of brutal and predatory patriarchal systems of power, but as a whole, this approach means that the play lacks a coherent identity.
Indeed, most of the play, under director Elle While, has this ramshackle feel about it as if it is slightly under-rehearsed. Fortunately, there are still some stand-out moments, especially when Richmond, Richard’s nemesis, appears towards the end. In a flight jacket, Sam Crerar is truly excellent as the future king of England (and would be truly excellent as a Richard one day too). Richmond’s stirring speech is a telling contrast to Richard’s whining supplication to arms and it suggests that other masculinities are available.
Looking a bit like Lady Di, Marianne Oldham as Elizabeth is a compelling presence, especially when she hears of Richard’s designs on her daughter. Like the old Princess of Wales, Elizabeth is trapped in a world of men where the curses she has been taught by Margaret are rendered useless. Richard makes her an offer that she literally can’t refuse. But when Richard calls his potential mother-in-law “mother”, Terry doesn’t quite get the audience response that this insult deserves.
Instead, director While wants to keep things light, with only the tuba of the brass band offering any tension. For the rest of the time, this Richard III feels like a game where boys play at king. Of course, that’s the point, but as a result, the drama has been sucked out of Shakespeare’s a-murder-a-minute tale. And the biggest problem remains; when will we have a disabled actor playing Richard III at the Globe?
Runs until 3 August 2024
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Ramshackle Richard
