RICHARD III (International Actors Ensemble/Circle in the Sand/Alex Theatre)*****

 

By Cal

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj1ge02w53o

Available until: Unknown

There’s just one problem with this production of Richard III.

I don’t know how any other production is ever going to live up to it.

Of course, there are so many ways of presenting this play and its numerous characters. If any company decided to do their own Richard III exactly like this one, they probably wouldn’t do it as well. But in practice, there are many valid ways of presenting the play.

The bar is high, though.

This is an incredible and outstanding production and one positive of lockdown is that I’m not going to go home from the theatre and never see this production again. It’s on youtube so I will be able to watch it again. That thought is… perhaps slightly overwhelming right now because a great production twists you inside out a bit so you need to recover! But it’s such good news that this production is likely to be available for a while and that the number of views isn’t limited to the number of people who can fit inside a theatre.

It’s not an easy play, emotionally. It’s fair to say there’s a bit of stress and sadness, as well as moments that can make you feel really angry with the characters and there are some quite scary moments too. Richard III is a play where terrible things happen so any good production is likely to produce an element of emotion in most audience members, but this production is so good, it feels particularly and almost painfully real. (There’s actually no solid evidence that Richard was responsible for all the events in this play, but that doesn’t matter. Shakespeare’s Richard can be officially blamed for everything.)

The production is nearly four hours long so it’s a big commitment, but it’s completely worth it. It’s a powerful, compelling performance and even some of the smaller and arguably less important scenes are riveting. There is a brilliant scene where two murderers, played by David Meadows and David France, discuss a murder they’ve been asked to commit. It’s the kind of scene that could be cut in the interests of shortening the play – all we really need to know is whether or not the murderers did their job – but the two Davids make it a powerful piece of drama and I actually forgot about the main storyline for a while; I forgot that I knew very well whether the person in question was murdered or not – the conversation was so interesting and involving, it became, briefly, more important than anything else in the play. This production has numerous scenes like that and this attention to detail from the actors even in the smallest roles makes the piece even more exciting.

There is also a great scene between three of the play’s women, the Duchess of York (Richard’s mother), Queen Margaret (widow of Henry VI) and Queen Elizabeth (wife of Edward IV, Richard’s older brother, who is King at the start of the play). They are a formidable trio. Francesca Waters is chilling as the Duchess. Josie Eberhard shows Margaret’s rage so potently, it really does feel like she’s in the same room as you (not really somewhere you’d want Margaret to be), rather than on a screen. Klahr Thorsen’s razor-sharp Queen Elizabeth is the most mellow of the three, but that’s not saying much. It really isn’t. The three of them have incredible onscreen chemistry and I’ve never felt more grateful I’m not Richard III. It would be scary enough annoying just one of them! Wonderful performances.

The ghost scene was extremely powerful. I won’t say who they all were in case you don’t know who died or can’t remember them all (which is understandable!), but Amy Bradney-George, who played Henry VI in all three of his plays, returns to the role and does a great job of being a slightly creepy version of the character we’ve got to know.

If you want to know which other actors are great, you might as well just read the cast list, but I’ll mention a few. Adam T. Perkins gives a very moving performance as the Duke of Clarence. Valentina Vinci is a vicious and (spitting aside) dignified Queen Anne, though there is a pathos in her performance which makes her less repellent than usual. Matthew O’Sullivan has a relatively small role as Sir William Stanley, but there’s something about the character that commands respect. Paul Robertson is great as King Edward IV’s mental strength is slowly overcome by his physical weakness.

But the play is really about one man more than any other and Montgomery Sutton is phenomenal in the title role. He starts off as evil, calculating and insincere, yet you can also see the charm that fools people to begin with. Later, you see him start to struggle with the weight of his emotions and his bursts of anger are sudden, shocking, and so convincing. If you feel yourself backing away from your screen, that’s understandable! He’s a character you really should dislike, if not hate, but Monty somehow even manages to summon up some sympathy for the character in his suffering. His reaction to the ghosts feels genuine and painful. It really feels as though everything is catching up with Richard and becoming too much for him. When a performance is this compelling and their characterisation is this fascinating, it is impossible not to become invested, much as you might hate everything he does.

And throughout all the extremes of emotion, changes in body position and topless scenes (which I really didn’t mind at all), I didn’t once see Richard lose his hump.