Richard III 2013

 

   
King Richard III © National Portrait Gallery, London

14 Feb - 30 March 2013                               


Production Photos: Mark Douet
John Mackay - Richard III, Dorothea Myer-Bennett - Lady Anne

Richard III
The story of the deformed and ruthless Duke of Gloucester who charms, deceives and murders his way to power. Not to be mistaken for historical fact, Richard III is Shakespeare’s most popular English history play and remains as gripping and convincing an account of political intrigue and power-play as has ever been written. 

PRESS REVIEWS

The Guardian
****

Richard III should probably thank Shakespeare. The playwright may have destroyed his reputation but, in doing so, he ensured the last Plantagenet lived on in the popular imagination. If the remains of a good, dull king had been dug up in a Leicester car park, we wouldn't have cared. Richard's enduring appeal lies in how Shakespeare has him play to the gallery – and makes the audience complicit in his determination to "prove a villain".

Andrew Hilton's superb revival, the first play in the annual Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory season, is typically plain, uncluttered and well-spoken; but, for all its stark simplicity, it has an irresistible theatricality, as it explores how Richard stage-manages his way to power. Only when he finally gets there is he suddenly caught in the spotlight, behaving like a bashful actor being wildly applauded at a curtain call.

As in all Hilton's productions, it is the clarity of the storytelling and the attention to detail that makes Shakespeare slip down so easily, with every character brought fully to life. There is particularly fine support from Alan Coveney as Hastings and Paul Currier as Buckingham, ambitious but good men caught up in Richard's power plays; and Nicky Goldie, Lisa Kay and Dorothea Myer-Bennett work well together as the grief-stricken and vengeful royal women.

But, rightly, the night belongs to John Mackay's Richard, a cadaver-like figure in dull black dressed like a backstage worker – trying not to draw attention to himself, yet smarter than anyone else. Mackay speaks fast and persuasively, like a sincere used-car salesman who has doctored the mileage and seems constantly astonished by the ease of his own success. He usurps not just the crown, but the very stage itself. Lyn Gardner

The Arts Desk

Stripped-down Bristol Shakespeare scores again

Performing Shakespeare in a former cigarette factory in South Bristol has become something of a ritual for Andrew Hilton and his close-knit company. Any act of ritual requires a dedicated space and the red-tiled floor on which the drama unfolds on this most intimate of stages has taken on a certain aura. With the minimum of sets and props, a deep probing of the text and the minimum of modish theatrical artifice, Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory proves year after year that less is more, at least when it comes to awakening the imagination.

Hilton uses the space as an alchemical vessel, a place of transformation. Richard’s opening soliloquy is spoken with the house lights on, but when it’s over, the place goes dark, and the audience, facing each other across the four sides of the space, brought to rapt attention as if by the magic of Gloucester’s words and holding the illusion of the play between them, near miraculously create the container within which the tragedy will unfold.

John Mackay gives the twisted Duke of Gloucester’s ambition a psychopathic turn. Mackay is a tall man: at times, his gangling dysfunctionality – arms and legs flailing about as if only half under his conscious control – spills into the grand guignol that always threatens a role in which excess is essential. Richard embodies human nature distorted, forced by frustration and anger into a manic and obsessive will to power. There is a whiff of Tarantino in this play – the spine-chilling combination of black humour and extreme violence – and this is where the danger lies. John Mackay mostly gets it right, not least, at the spell-binding moment when his conscience briefly awakens, on the eve of the final battle, and the ghosts of his victims come to haunt him.

The rest of the cast are all very good. Paul Currier, as Buckingham, plays the ultimate chancer with an all-too-human mix of fiendishness and vulnerability. This is a schemer we can believe in, even identify with. The women are all good: they carry all the emotions that Richard’s psychopathic nature excludes. Lisa Kay as Queen Elizabeth navigates the difficult contrast between regal force and a mother’s grief with flawless brio. Nicky Goldie is equally assured and very moving as the monster Richard’s mother. There is a singularly powerful moment when Hilton has them both on the ground, facing in opposite directions, two mothers brought down by fury and grief, the Duchess cursing her murderous son and the Queen keening for her dead princes.

The production catches well the bare-faced ambition, treachery and spin which characterise politics. Forget the battered skeleton recently unearthed in a Leicester car park or the fact Shakespeare may have been spinning his own pro-Tudor propaganda: this is a play for today, a dark vision of power as addictive substance and the inconstancy of men – always reputed to be less easily swayed by sentiment than their wives. Once again, Andrew Hilton’s stripped-down approach to a classic pays off. If you haven’t yet tasted his potent brew, a visit to the Tobacco Factory is strongly recommended. Mark Kidel

 

The Observer: 'Have the ghosts that appear to Richard III ever been better done? ...Fading and glowing in the blackness, the past comes back to haunt the present. How apt that this should be so, just as Richard's own skeleton has been discovered: Andrew Hilton has parked his production with perfect timing. ... John Mackay's Richard is constantly unsettling. He looks like an eel wrapped in velvet, but is as quizzically attentive as a falcon, his head slightly to one side sizing up the prey. He is not histrionic but more dangerous.' (Susannah Clapp)

 'Kevin Spacey and Mark Rylance have given us a couple of highly effective Richards recently. Mackay gives a quieter but just as compelling reading of a man who smooth-talks and murders his way to his stint at the top.' (Dominic Maxwell)
  'Mackay’s Richard is first-rate. He captures his love of dissembling, his will to power, his desire to control others. He is convincing as seducer, plotter and fighter. He looks unnerving with his peroxide blond crew-cut and his withered arm, uneven gait and his cold dead eyes.' (John Campbell)
 'John Mackay, returning to the company in the title role after several successful seasons with the RSC, ensures that Richard is no unhappy hero who falls from power because of a fatal flaw. He both starts and ends a villain, albeit one with audacity and wit who delights in his own wickedness.' (Jeremy Brien)

****Exeunt Magazine: 'The final fight is a work of art: Richard against Richmond, a vigorous and crucial dance between a terrible strength and a beautiful strength.' (Geraldine Giddings)

****The Public Reviews: 'John Mackay flies in the face of expectation and gives Bristol audiences a truly original force of nature in his reading of Richard.' (Shane Morgan)

****The Arts Desk: 'There is a whiff of Tarantino – the spine-chilling combination of black humour and extreme violence.' (Mark Kidel)

****Plays To See: This is a performance which is experienced rather than viewed. Unexpectedly hilarious in its gleeful sadism, it almost mirrors Tarantino in its unrelenting, guiltily pleasurable violence.' (Emily Derbyshire)

 'Hilton has once again caught the mood of a play with a light touch and a wonderful gift for coaxing the most beautiful verse-speaking from his cast.' (Eleanor Turney)

8/10 This is Bristol:  'The verbal battle with Lisa Kay's deeply passionate Queen Elizabeth, wonderfully staged by director Andrew Hilton making use of every inch of the acting area, was a scene to savour. (Gerry Parker)

  : 'A brilliant performance - controlled, darkly amusing - a man skilled at manipulating his way to the top.' (Harry Motram)

Gazette Series: 'An enthralling journey through our great Bard’s famously unhistorical history.' (Lucy Fulford)

Plays International – Summer 2013

   Once again Bristol's Tobacco Factory provided the highlights of the Spring season here, with two fantastic productions: Richard III was a timely choice as that monarch's remains were recently unearthed in a Leicester car-park, and the SATTF (Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory) team made a superb job of the bard's most melodramatic historical play.  

   One of the strengths of this venue is its physical space, set centrally to the audience on four sides, and Andrew Hilton's production relished this opportunity for imaginary landscapes from the intimate opening, when Richard's casual entrance makes us all collusive witnesses, to the final battle raging imminently near as he calls for a horse, a horse ... John Mackay is marvellous in the title-role, playing the lines for callous wit and near-psychotic ruthlessness. It's a dominant but hugely subtle performance, with even room for fleeting pity for the killing-machine king as he watches impassively as his mother, the Duchess of York, pours out a torrent of loathing dating from the moment of his malformed birth, recalling that earlier declaration 'since I cannot prove a lover, I am determined to prove a villain'. He's not dog- scaringly deformed either - a bit gangly and with a useless arm which adds psychological depth.        

   A lead actor this charismatic needs counterbalance, and the rest of the cast provide that with strong       performances all round, especially in moments of respite from terror and treachery: Chris Donnelly as an inept murderer, Piers Wehner and Jack Bannell bringing a younger energy, and of course the sweet & solemn little princes. Costumes designed by Harriet de Winton are sumptuously of the era and look fabulous - gorgeous jewel tones teamed with sable, black and gold, and Matthew Graham's lighting design enhanced every mood. Crysse Morrison            



CAST

 Jack Bannell, Brakenbury & Richmond
Christopher Bianchi,  Edward IV & James Tyrrell
Peter Clifford, Friar & Lovell 
Alan Coveney, Hastings
Paul Currier, Buckingham
Chris Donnelly, 2nd Murderer & Blunt
Rupert Holliday Evans, Clarence & Lord Mayor of London
Marc Geoffrey, 1st Murderer & Ely 
Nicky Goldie, Duchess of York
Joe Hall, Catesby
Lisa Kay, Queen Elizabeth
Andrew Macbean, Henry VI, Citizen & Sheriff
John Mackay, Richard III
Dorothea Myer-Bennett Lady Anne & Citizen
John Sandeman Rivers & Fight Director
David Collins Stanley
Piers Wehner Grey
Charlie Wilkinson
& Luke Zollman Thomas, Young Duke of York
Olly Bell
& James Wearmouth, Edward, Prince of Wales

PRODUCTION

Director, Andrew Hilton
Associate Director, Dominic Power
Assistant Director, Charlie Parker
Designer, Harriet de Winton
Costume Supervisor, Rosalind Marshall
Composer, Elizabeth Purnell
Lighting Designer, Matthew Graham
Fight Director, John Sandeman

 

SOURCES

We print excerpts here from Shakespeare's pricipal sources:

from Sir Thomas More’s  HISTORY OF KING RICHARD III

The description of Richard

Richard, the third son, was in wit and courage equal with either of them [his brothers, King Edward and george, Duke of Clarence], in body and probity far under them both: little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard-favoured of visage and such as is in princes called warlike, in other men otherwise. He was malicious, wrathful, envious, and, from before his birth, ever froward. It is for truth reported that the Duchess his mother had so much ado in her travail that she could not be delivered of him uncut, and that he came into the world with the feet forward and (as the fame runs) also not untoothed: either men out of hatred report above the truth or else nature changed her course in his beginning who in the course of his life many things unnaturally committed. No evil captain was he in the war, as to which his disposition was more meet than for peace. Sundry victories had he and sometimes overthrows, but never for any lack in his own person, either of hardiness or politic order. Free was he called of spending and somewhat above his power liberal: with large gifts he got him unsteadfast friendship, for which he was fain to pillage and spoil in other places, and get him steadfast hatred.

He was close and secret, a deep dissembler, lowly of countenance, arrogant of heart, outwardly companionable where he inwardly hated, not hesitating to kiss whom he thought to kill, pitiless and cruel, not for evil will always but oftener for ambition and either for the surety or increase of his position. `Friend' and 'foe' were to him indifferent: where his advantage grew, he spared no man's death whose life withstood his purpose. He slew with his own hands - as men constantly say - King Henry the Sixth, being prisoner in the Tower, and that without commandment or knowledge of the King, who would undoubtedly, if he had intended that thing, have appointed that butcherly office to some other than his own born brother.

Some wise men also think that his drift, covertly conveyed, lacked not in helping forth his brother of Clarence to his death, which he resisted openly, howbeit somewhat (as men deemed) more faintly than he that were heartily minded to his welfare. And they that thus deem, think that he long time in King Edward's life forethought to be king in case that the King his brother (whose life he looked that evil diet should shorten) should happen to decease (as indeed he did) while his children were young. And they deem that for this intent he was glad of the death of his brother the Duke of Clarence, whose life must needs have hindered him whether the same Duke of Clarence had kept him true to his nephew, the young King, or enterprised to be king himself. But of all this point is there no certainty, and whoso divines upon conjectures may as well shoot too far as too short.

from Holinshed’s CHRONICLE

The victory of Edward IV in 14?? and the death and obsequies of Henry VI

King Edward, having assembled an army of thirty thousand men (as some write) and accompanied in manner with all the great lords of England, came to London the one and twentieth of May, being Tuesday, where he was honourably received by the mayor, aldermen, and other worshipfull citizens: where even upon their first meeting with him he dubbed divers of them knights; as the mayor, the recorder, & other aldermen, and worshipfull commoners of the city, which had manfully and valiantly acquitted themselves … Moreover, here is to be remembered, that poor king Henry the Sixth, a little before deprived of his realm and imperial crown, was now in the Tower spoiled of his life, by Richard duke of Glocester (as the constant fame ran) who (to the intent that his brother king Edward might reigne in more surety) murdered the said King Henry with a dagger.

(Howbeit, some writers of that time, favoring altogether the house of York, have recorded, that after he understood what losses had chanced unto his friends, and how not only his son, but also all other his chief partakers were dead and dispatched, he took it so to heart, that of pure displeasure, indignation, and melancholy, he died the three and twentieth of May.)

The dead corpse on the Ascension even was conveyed with bills and glaues pompously (if you will call that a funeral pomp) from the Tower to the church of Saint Paul, and there laid on a bier or coffin bare faced, the same in presence of the beholders did bleed; where it rested the space of one whole day. From thence he was carried to the Blackfriars, and bled there likewise: and on the next day after, it was conveyed in a boat, without priest or clerk, torch or taper, singing or saying, unto the monastery of Chertsey, distant from London fifteen miles, and there was it first buried: but after, it was removed to Windsor, and there in a new vault, newly intombed. He reigned eight and thirty years, six months and odd days, and after his readoption of the crown six months. He lived two and fifty years, having by wife one only son, called Edward, prince of Wales.

from Edward Hall’s THE UNION OF THE TWO NOBLE & ILLUSTRE FAMELIES OF LANCASTRE AND YORKE    

The end of Clarence

… there fell a spark of private malice, between the King & his brother the Duke of Clarence, whether it rose of old grudges before time passed, or were it newly kindled and set afire by the Queen, or her blood which were ever mistrusting and privily barking at the King’s lignage, or were he desirous to reign after his brother:... The fame was that the King or the Queen, or both sore troubled with a foolish prophesy, and by reason therof began to stomack & grievously to grudge against the Duke. The effect of which was, after king Edward should reign, one whose first letter of his name should be a G. and because the devil is wont with such witchcrafts, to wrap and illaqueat the minds of men, which delight in such devilish fantasies they said afterward that that prophesie lost not his effect, when after Kyng Edward, Gloucester usurped his kingdome. ... The king much grieved and troubled with his brother’s daily querimonye, .. . caused him to be apprehended, and cast into the Tower, where he being taken and adjudged for a Traitor, was privily drowned in a butt of Malmesey. 

But sure it is that although King Edward were consenting to his death and destruction, yet he much did both lament his unfortunate chance, and repent his sudden execution. Inasmuch, that when any person sued to him for pardon or remission, of any malefactor condemned to the punishment of death, he would accustomably say, & openly speak, ‘0 unfortunate brother, for whose life not one creature would make intercession,’ openly speaking, and apparently meaning, that by the means of some of the nobility, he was circumvented, and brought to his confusion.

The ‘strawberry’ council

These lords thus sitting communing of this matter, the Protector came in among them about nine of the clock saluting theim courteously, excusing himself that he had been from them so long saying merely that he had been a sleper that day. And after a little talking with them he said to the Bishop of Ely, ‘My lord you have very good strawberries in your garden at Holborn, I require you let us have a mess of them.’  ‘Gladly, my lord,’ quoth he, ‘I would I had some better thing as ready to your pleasure as that, and with that in all haste he sent his servant for a dish of strawberies. The Protector set the lords fast in communing and thereupon prayed them to spare him a little, and so he departed and came again betweene ten and eleven of the clock into the chamber all changed with a sour angry countenance knitting the brows, frowning and fretting and gnawing on his lips and so set him down in his place.

All the lords were dismayed and sore marvelled of this manner and sudden change and what thing should him ail. When he had sat a while, thus he began: ‘What were they worthy to have that compass and imagine the destruction of me being so near of blood to the king & protector of this his royal realm?' At which question, all the lords sat sore astonished, musing much by whom the question should be meant, of which every man knew him self clear.

Then the lord Hastings as he that for the familiarity that was between them, thought he might be boldest with him, answered and said that they were worthy to be punished as heinous trautors what soever they were,' and all the other affirmed the same. ‘That is ‘, quoth he, ‘yonder sorcerer my brother’s wife and others with her, meaning the queen. At these words many of the lords were sore abashed which favoured her, but the lord Hastings was better content in his mind that it was moved by her than by any other that he loved better, albeit his heart grudged that he was not afore made of counsel of this matter as well as he was of the taking of her kindred and of their putting to death, which were by his assent before devised to be beheaded at Pomfret, this self same day, in the which he was not aware that it was by other devised that he himself should the same day be beheaded at London.  Then said the Protector in what wise that sorceress and other of her counsel, as Shore’s wife with her affinity have by their sorcery and witchcraft this wasted my body, and therewith plucked up his doublet slieve to his elbow on his left arm, where he showed a weryshe withered arm & small as it was never other. And thereupon, every man’s mind misgave them, well perceiving that this matter was but a quarrel, for well they wist that the queen was both too wise to go about any such folly, & also if she would, yet would she of all folk make Shore’s wife least of her counsel whom of all women she most hated as that concubine whom the King her husband most loved.

Also, there was no man there but knew that his arm was ever such since the day of his birth. Nevertheless the lorde Hastings, which from the death of King Edward kept Shore’s wife ... Yet now his heart somewhat grudged to have her whom he loved so highly accused, and that as he knew well untruly, therefore he answered and said, ‘Certainly, my lord, if they have so done, they be worthy of heinous punishment.’  ‘What?’ quoth the Protector, ‘thou servest me I wene with ‘if’ and with ‘and’, I tell the they have done it, and that will I make good on thy body, traiutor.’ And therewith (as in a great anger) he clapped his fist on the board a great rap, at which token given, one cried treason without the chamber, and therewith a door clapped, and in came rushing men in harneyes as many as the chamber could hold. And anon the Protector said to the lord Hastings, ‘I arrest thee, traitor.’ “What me, my lord?’ quoth he. ‘Yea thee, traitor!’ quoth the Protector.

And one let fly at the lord Stanley, which shrunk at the stroke and fell under the table, or else his head had been cleft to the teeth, for as shortly as he shrank, yet ran the blood about his ears.

Then was the Archbishop of York and Doctor Morton, Bishop of Ely, & the lord Stanley taken and divers other which were bestowed in divers chambers, save the lord Hastings (whom the Protector commanded to speed and shrive him apace) ‘for by Saint Paul,’ quod he, ‘I will not dine till I see thy head off.’  It booted him not to ask why, but heavily he took a priest at adventure and made a short shrift, for a longer would not be suffered, the Protector made so much haste to his dinner, which might not go to it till this murder were done, for saving of his ungracious oath. So was he brought forth into the green beside the chapel within the Tower, and his head laid down on a log of timber that lay there for building of the chapel, & there tyrannously stricken off, and after his body and head were enterred at Windsor by his master King Edward the Fourth, whose souls Jesu pardon. Amen.

The death of the Princes in the Tower

James Tyrrel devised that they should be murdered in their beds, and no blood shed: to the execution whereof, he appointed Myles Forest one of the four that before kept them … and to him he joined one John Dighton his own horsekeeper, a big, broad, square and strong knave. Then all the other being removed from them, this Miles Forest and John Dighton about midnight, the sely children lying in their beds, came into the chamber and suddenly lapped them up amongst the cloths and so bewrapped them and entangled them, keeping down by force the featherbed and pillows hard unto their mouths, that within a while they smored & stifled them, and their breaths failing, they gave up to God their innocent souls into the joys of heaven, leaving to the tormentors their bodies dead in the bed, which after the wretches perceived, first by the struggling, with the pangs of death, and after long lying still to be throughly dead, they laid the bodies out upon the bed, and fetched James Tyrrel to see them, which when he saw them perfectly dead, he caused the murderers to bury them at the stair foot, meetly deep in the ground under a great heap of stones.

Then rode James Tyrrel in great haste to King Richard, and showed him all the manner of the murder, who gave him great thanks, and as men say, there made him knight, but he allowed not their burial in so vile a corner, saying that he would have them buried in a better place because they were a king’s sons. Lo, the honourable courage of a king, for he would recompense a detestable murder with a solemne obsequy. Wherupon a priest of Sir Robert Brakenbury’s took them up & buried them in such a place secretely as by the occasion of his death (which was very shortly after) which only knew it, the very truth could never yet be very well and perfectly known. For some say that King Richard caused the priest to take them up and close them in lead and to put them in a coffine full of holes hooked at the endes with hooks of yron, and so to cast them into a place called the Black deeps at the Thames mouth, so that they should never rise up nor be seen again ...

I have heard by credible report of such as were secret with his chamberers that after this abominable deed done, he never was quiet in his mind, he never thought himself sure where he went abroad, his body privily feinted, his eyes whirled about, his hand ever on his dagger, his countenance and manner like always to stricke again, he toke evil rest on nights, lay long waking and musing. For wearied with care and watch, rather slumbered then slept, troubled with fearful dreams, suddenly sometime start up, leapt out of his bed and looked about the chamber, so was his restless heart continually tossed and tumbled with the tedious impression and stormy remembrance of his abominable murder and execrable tyranny.