TheatreguideLondon
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The TheatreguideLondon Review
Richard III
Hampstead Theatre Summer 2011 and touring
Under Ed Hall's skilled direction the all-male Propeller company does what it does best – a clear, fast-moving production based on a solid interpretation, with strong acting and some memorably powerful sequences. There are a couple of silly moments, but they're more than balanced by the fresh touches that work brilliantly.
The play opens, on a set that suggests an abattoir or morgue, with the cast in butcher's smocks and white face masks that make them look like Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
A chainsaw will appear before the interval, one of several tools used in bringing the play's many killings onstage, because this is a production that does not shrink from the fact that Richard of Gloucester carves a very bloody path toward the throne and continues to kill in order to stay there.
In addition to the killings Shakespeare wrote, director Hall has Richard dispatch Clarence's murderers, Lady Anne and a couple more with his own hands.
Hall and actor Richard Clothier make this the key to the character and the play – that Richard is a totally conscienceless killer, an irresistible force marching through the English nobility.
Clothier sacrifices some of the dark humour and self-delight others have brought to the role, but it's an acceptable trade-off, though making Richard's collapse toward the end of the play understandable is a little more difficult.
And for once this is not a one-man show, as there are several strong performances around Clothier's.
Instead of the effete born-victim most actors find in Clarence, John Dougall gives him the strength and courage to stand up against his murderers with enough force that he almost changes history.
If Jon Trenchard's Lady Anne barely registers, Dominic Tighe's Queen Elizabeth is a formidable antagonist to Richard, and Tony Bell invests Queen Margaret's curses with all the force of heavenly nemesis.
(It should go without saying that there isn't a hint of camp in any of the female characters and, as is always the case with Propeller, you quickly forget or ignore the gender of the actor in the gown.)
There are a couple of things that don't work. Turning Clarence's murderers into a music hall comedy act may have sounded clever in theory, but it's tiresome in practice, and someone should have assured Ed Hall that Shakespeare is a strong enough writer that he didn't need the insertion of a rap sequence.
Gerald Berkowitz
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Review - Richard III - Propeller at Hampstead 2011