Abstract
Overcast skies foreshadowed the evening performance of Richard III at Shakespeare's Globe on what should have been the balmy July evening before a long-awaited general election, but such portents should surely be taken with a pinch of salt, especially when they precede your first visit to a theatre of such renown (and indeed if you happen to live in the UK where this counts as relatively fair weather). Despite my surprise at the shiny glass doors and squeaky clean floors that greet you in the entrance foyer is truly difficult to resist the infectious excitement of the audience when you step into the theatre itself. Complete with very helpful ushers and smoothly sanded (if somewhat hard) benches, the theatre is truly a dreamlike vision of Shakespeare's original stage which, in all its pastiche glory does allow modern audiences to enter efficiently into the spirit of the thing.
Even before the play begins, the programme briefs the audience with the intended preoccupations of the production, with many American accents in and around the groundlings noting the direct references to Donald Trump that feature throughout the small booklet. Indeed, many script alterations and staging choices throughout the show openly accommodate these themes, such as red MAGA-esque caps that populate the stage before Richard's coronation (4.2) and Richard's own borrowing of the declaration that ‘when you’re a star, they let you do it’, following his forceful ‘seduction’ of Anne Neville (1.2). Building on these Trump-isms, the programme establishes that the theme of violence against women is intended to take centre stage in Elle While's boisterous, if heavily pruned, production. Indeed, this does find itself presented in the increased stage presence of an often silent Anne Neville – fervently portrayed by Katie Erich – whose emphatic use of British Sign Language seems to hint at voicelessness as well as the power and creativity of alternative expressive means. However, by attempting to foreground the maltreatment of women within Richard III, this theme must battle with the titular villain's charisma for attention. I am unsure that it wins.
As noted in the programme by Hailey Bachrach: ‘It's easy to get distracted by the titular character of Richard III’, which seems something of an understatement. Michelle Terry's Richard is charismatic, with her performance ranging from delightfully menacing – particularly in the opening moments of the play as she skulks around the stage in black behind the jubilant dancers – to comedic, as not moments later she thrusts her exaggerated codpiece à la Rik Mayall. A little unfortunately, this transition occurs swiftly within the first scene and despite attempts from all sides, Richard never quite reclaims the full air of danger exhibited in his first few moments onstage. Instead Terry is crude, lecherous, and uncomfortable as a general inclination for laughs and political references tilts the production towards humour. Even when the despot is absent from the action, you cannot help but be perpetually scanning the stage, waiting for him to re-emerge in a new, garish outfit or with a ludicrous accusation to drive the plot forward. Despite the programme's best efforts to divert your attention to the women of the piece and convince you to look away from Richard, what remains of Shakespeare's script ensures that you cannot escape Richard's gravitational pull and, given the controversy surrounding Terry's casting – that of an able-bodied actor in a disabled role – the insistence that audiences look away from the titular fiend feels peculiar and disconcerting.
Whilst I do concur with the programme's emphatic insistence that Richard III is about more than its namesake villain, the role of women and the abuse and scorn they face despite (and indeed possibly because of) their ability to see through Richard's dissembling facade and linguistic gymnastics is a vital element to the plot. However, a great deal of the female perception of Richard in Shakespeare's script concerns his markedly disabled appearance, an appearance that does not actually appear on the Shakespeare's Globe stage. Indeed, whilst the curses slung at Richard by the female characters retain the image of a ‘bottled spider’ and a ‘dog’ (4.4), lines referring to Richard as a ‘lump of foul deformity’ (1.2) are noticeably cut. Such alterations are obviously made to fit Terry's able-bodied performance of an able-bodied Richard, a decision clearly taken to avoid ‘cripping up’, a term coined by playwright Kaite O’Reilly to describe the affectation of disability by non-disabled actors. Truly, Terry's Richard is not only not disabled but comically physically fit, with the synthetic male chest piece worn by Terry sporting more than one set of farcical abs. The sudden and amusing reveal of this fake chest draws stark comparison with Terry's own puffy, black costuming from the opening scenes and in this shedding of their shadowy garb, the chest piece presents Terry's Richard in naked villainy, a distinct contrast with the costuming of Richard's past, padded to absurdity and distortion to achieve that now infamous monstrous silhouette.
With this in mind, it is easy to see why Terry's casting was met with considerable backlash, especially as it follows Arthur Hughes's portrayal of Richard III at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2022, which saw the role filled for the first time at the company by a disabled actor. In removing the bodily difference of Richard, the production suggests that it should suffice for the audience that this Richard is a villain for villainy's sake, rather than resulting from social stigma and exclusion that is so pivotal to the motivations of the character in the original work. It also therefore begs the question whether Richard III is still Richard III if the motivations and drives derived from physical difference and disability are removed entirely.
Notwithstanding the controversy surrounding the production and the questions it raises, the performances throughout are slick and entertaining, and the costuming possesses a whimsical mix-and-match ethos. By taking elements of modern dress and combining it with the expected doublet and hose, the production weaves the timelessness of political corruption into the very fabric worn by its cast. Indeed, the costuming of certain characters felt like direct references to specific individuals, with Richard/Trump being the most obvious, but others work well as general signposts. For example, Helen Schlesinger's Buckingham whose slicked back hair and meticulous suit gave an air of Anthony Eden, but perhaps simply signalled ‘The Politician’. Indeed, Schlesinger's adept and handsome performance does warrant individual praise as especially enjoyable. In particular, the fabulously performed 3.7 wherein Buckingham, seeking to drum up support for Richard's accession to the throne, has the audience cheering, pleading, chanting, and even kneeling – with some strong-minded and/or weak-kneed exceptions – on command.
Overall, the production is fun and its multiple modern references make headway in highlighting the continued relevance of the drama and politics of the piece, suggesting that perhaps we haven't advanced all that far from the intrigue, abuses of power and celebrity of the Plantagenet court. Although, perhaps at times, the general emphasis on comedy led to normally serious scenes being read comically by spectators, such as when the audience laughed during the murder of the two princes in a sleeping bag. This in combination with the production's attempts to perform a theatrical sleight of hand – asking you to look one way (at the women of the piece) whilst dialogue alterations removing all elements of disability are made in another – seems to neglect that in doing so, they are attempting to circumvent and reinvent Shakespeare's greatest showman, a feat that the media has proven is not even easily said, let alone done.
Personally, I would more than happily see the performance again for the joy of the Globe and the glorious audience interaction in the Pit, although I do still wonder if what I’d be watching on the stage is really Shakespeare's Richard III at all.