Lots of what we take for granted in drama is solidified in William Shakespeare’s Richard III, most prominently a self-consciousness about being a fictional character, including addressing the audience directly in a way that clearly foreshadows our modern “breaking the fourth wall” more than an internal soliloquy. This early dissection of the banality of evil, the weakness of “good” people, how easily greed eats through all of us, how readily we’ll lower our standards and sell out what were our inviolable principles just minutes ago, how impossible it is to maintain your fragile balance – these still have plenty of juice, as the delightful production in Schiller Park courtesy of Actors’ Theatre amply demonstrates.
I’m not sure there’s ever been a better first line in the English language than “Now is the winter of our discontent.” As the title character, the Duke of Gloucester (Geoff Wilson), hobbles onto center stage in a boxy double-breasted suit and unfurls that acidic soliloquy, it’s impossible to not sit up and pay attention. Director Jennifer Feather Youngblood has made the fascinating choice to set this tale of a world falling apart and shifting under its players’ feet in the late 1950s-early ’60s mafia era (if I had to guess I’d put it between the First Family War and the Valachi hearings). That combination fits like a perfect leather glove.
Richard of Gloucester’s hypocrisy and martyr complex turn a mirror on the audience and can’t help but remind us of our own little hypocrisies, cruelties, and judgments. In his interpretation, Wilson shifts the character’s infirmity to a twisting of the spine and a withered arm, giving the character the benefit of a sword-cane, a perfect metaphor for the easily underestimated cripple who will kill many people before he’s done. His performance recalls Frank Sinatra in its calculated demeanor: lagging behind the beat, using fragility when it suits him, and not shying from a world-class intellect but exploding with rage at a low flashpoint. Wilson’s interpretation also understands the oily persuasiveness and the raw charisma oozing out of Gloucester as in his canny seduction of Lady Anne (a charming Christina Yoho) moments after his musing, “What, though I killed her husband and father? The readiest way to make the wench amends, is to become her husband and her father.” Richard’s winking, sly humor as he marries and murders his way through the house of Lancaster and the family of Woodville is a key component of the play, and that incongruity of a man murmuring, to the audience as though in a seduction, “Was ever a woman in humour woo’d? Was ever a woman in this humour won?” while already musing about killing her, is given an extra tension through the play’s Cuban heels and flowing short sleeved shirts.
Youngblood makes great use of the setting for a ready-made rat pack surrounding Richard with Hastings (Micah Logsdon), Rivers (Jacob Betts who also delivers a blood-chilling turn as Tyrell), Ratcliffe (an ominous Jason Speicher), and Norfolk (Eric Binion), along with the almost-omnipresent Buckingham and Catesby. Richard’s right-hand Buckingham (Alex Chilton) is the canary in this crumbling coal mine as his belief in Richard starts to waver and he realizes he’ll never get what he was promised. It’s a gripping performance and the yin to his yang is Erica Beimesche’s take on Catesby as both secretary and consigliere. Pivotal to this group, though in only a few scenes, are the two murderers, Eric Binion and Laura Crone. Their chemistry and crackling, funny banter, as when they hesitate to murder someone because the victim says it will be cowardly “when he wakes,” put the pathos of the murder of Clarence, a heartbreaking David Ailing, in greater relief – the clearest demonstration of human consequence in the play, even more than the threat of murdering a child.
Vicky Welsh Bragg only appears briefly, but she’s a perfectly vicious, self-righteous Queen Margaret as cynical truth teller and voice of God. Margaret’s gimlet-eyed assessment of Richard as a disease cast down on England is cutting, and her pulse-pounding interactions with Wilson are highlights of the performance. Richard’s mother, the Duchess of York, is also given a fantastic feature through Susan Wismar’s cynical, cracked, and heartbroken portrayal. Robert Philpott as the square-jawed hero Richmond brims with charm, and wisely inserts just a touch of irony into his final speech about the healing of England and the end of the War of the Roses.
The final battle scenes feature some of the finest fight choreography I’ve seen in Schiller Park, courtesy of Angela Barch-Shamell. Barch-Shamell and Youngblood understand how to keep the focus on people we’ve seen matter for the previous two hours of the play; they people the stage with enough characters to give the impression of a chaotic battle but do it without cluttering the field of vision. There are the usual technical issues with a performance here – the mixture of some actors being mic’ed and some not can’t help but be jarring to the ear, and the night I went was particularly bad with feedback and drop-outs in the first act – but this is one of the best stagings I’ve seen of one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.
Richard III runs through August 2, 2015. Performances are at 8:00pm Thursday-Sunday. Performances are free but donations are encouraged and reserved seating is available. For more information please visit theactorstheatre.org.