[olga_endymion]

Отсюда: miriskusnik.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/richard-ii...


Richard II – Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbican Centre – review

Warning: this post contains many spoilers for the production, so if you’re planning to watch the production or the DVD, I would highly recommend doing that before reading this.

This is a slightly difficult review for me to write because I fell for this production so completely and unexpectedly. For two weeks I thought of little else, and then it vanished. But I’ll try to capture a little of what I loved about it.

I didn’t know this play really at all before watching this production but it immediately leapt right up to the top of my list of favorite Shakespeare plays. In fact, I kind of feel embarrassed to think that I thought I knew anything about Shakespeare before when I didn’t know this play, which I now love above all others.

After loving two high-concept visions of Shakespeare last year, I was a little surprised to find how much I enjoyed this more straightforward approach. Gregory Doran’s production simply excels in every aspect, from the staging to the set to the music to the fantastic cast. I think what I love most about this production is that it allows the play to shine: you walk away, or at least I did, in love with it. And to go back to what I’m always saying about Shakespeare, I really don’t care about whether it’s in ‘modern dress’ or period dress or authentic costumes, whether it’s got some big, bold concept applied to it or not, as long as the thought and analysis is there and whatever you go with is carried through all the way to the end. And this absolutely succeeds on that level.

I very quickly became slightly obsessed with this play after first watching it. (I had only intended to see it once, but I ended up going 6 times, i.e. to all remaining performances.) Upon reflection I realize that this play has a similar theme to my favorite ever Fathers and Sons in that we have a man who has complete conviction in who he is and who is lost after finding that shattered.

The language is almost unbearably beautiful. It seems, watching the play, that every line is more beautiful than the last. I love that it’s all in verse: not only is it gorgeous to listen to, it seems to fit Richard’s character so well, to the point that the idea of there being any prose in a play about him seems absurd. There are so many memorable passages and I love that it contains some of the most ornate language I’ve heard in a play as well as some of the most simple.


King Richard (David Tennant) and cast. Photo by Keith Pattison.

David Tennant captures both the heights and depths of Richard’s arc masterfully: from regal, proud king who loves ceremony and pretty things to the pitiful creature in rags and chains wasting away in the dark at Pomfret Castle. And Tennant is utterly captivating throughout this journey.

The Richard we first see on stage is haughty, uncaring, capricious, and completely convinced of his position. He is alien to everyone else on the stage, from his extravagantly long hair, elaborate robes, and nails glinting with gold varnish to the way he carries himself, face imperiously upturned, with absolute conviction everyone’s attention is on him at all times. His voice, too, is different from anyone else’s we hear: it’s musical, theatrical, drifting over words, clearly trained to illustrate the beauty of their sounds, not quite natural but on another plane entirely. It’s a performance, for Richard, but yet so embedded into his soul that he’s not actively performing.

Tennant portrays a Richard whose entire identity is so entwined with the idea of being king—of being God’s representative on earth—that when he is deposed you can’t see a way that he can separate the two without a fatal rupture. This makes his appearance in the later parts of the play painfully sad: frail, fragile, lost. He’s crushingly aware of how far he has fallen.

I like how Tennant captures the impulsive, mercurial nature of the character: he’s not simply an ethereal, otherworldly creature, but one capable of childlike anger when things don’t go his way, for instance during his utterly bratty lashing out at Gaunt as he exits for the last time with ‘And let them die that age and sullens have.’ It doesn’t even cross his mind that he might be wrong, as he is utterly confident in his place as God’s representative on earth: something we see later in this scene when he makes York lord governor, even though York has just gone on a massive rant about being fed up with Richard.

The production illustrates Richard’s audacious behavior well: for instance, we see Richard eating fancy sweets from a silver goblet as he complains about not having enough money to go to war with Ireland; there’s also a pretty awful moment in the first scene when he bangs his sceptre on the coffin containing the Duke of Gloucester (to the shock of the duchess) to attempt to command attention.

Tennant brings an aloof humor to the character which is amusing during his early scenes of self-indulgence and bad behavior and absolutely devastating as Richard later tries to cling to a sense of self that’s ever more quickly slipping away.

As I mentioned, I love the language of the play, and Tennant does equally well with Richard’s gilded speech at the beginning of the play as with his more humble turns of phrase towards the end. He infuses Richard’s regal pronouncements—for instance, his breathtaking speech to Northumberland at Flint Castle—with a majestic, shimmering, silken air, with words like paint upon a canvas.

But Tennant also brings so much to even the barest lines. One of the most touching moments in the whole play is his ‘Ay, no; no, ay’ during the deposition scene—as he says the words (and the following ‘For I must nothing be; therefore no, no’), he’s retreating backwards into himself, clinging to the crown, looking pleadingly upwards so he doesn’t have to look at Bolingbroke. It’s heartbreaking.

I want to say that this role suits Tennant perfectly, because he wears it so well, but actually I think that so much of what he does here is so different from what I’ve seen from him before that it would be doing him a disservice to say that.


John of Gaunt (Julian Glover) and Henry Bolingbroke (Jasper Britton). Photo by Keith Pattison.

The set is simple but stunning. Stephen Brimson Lewis’s design features shimmering beaded curtains, around the sides and also hanging down the length of the back wall, emphasizing the soaring height of the Barbican’s stage. Projections and changes in color shift the appearance of these curtains to portray the different locations of the play. There is little else beyond a few chairs, and of course the throne; what we mainly see is the high, wide expanse of the Barbican stage.

Paul Englishby’s gorgeous music elevates the play’s themes to something above the mortal, from fanfares befitting the splendor of a king to haunting choral meditations.

The rest of the cast is excellent, especially Jasper Britton, who draws a sharp contrast as Bolingbroke. He’s pragmatic, ambitious, obstinate. He participates in the formalities not because he believes in them but because he sees them as means to an end. He’s the antithesis of all the beautiful, poetic things Richard says a king should be.

It’s clear from the early scenes—at Gloucester’s funeral, and at Coventry—that he’s not willing to sit by and let Richard do as he pleases. This adds a sense of danger to the moment when Richard banishes him, because it’s obvious that Bolingbroke is not going to go quietly, and that this will spark the kindling thoughts in his mind into explosive rebellion.

I like that Britton gives the character a power and a dangerous quality that leads some of the other characters to be wary of or even fear him. For instance, when he mentions the queen in the scene where Bushy and Green are beheaded, York reacts with alarm, assuming Bolingbroke is going to have her killed, too.

I think he’s a great Bolingbroke: he has a strong presence on stage and matches up well with Tennant’s Richard, which makes their scenes together really something special.

Sam Marks is an exceptional Aumerle, incisively and movingly portraying a man torn between his family and his king. His Aumerle is less at home than the favourites of Richard’s court, but still clearly drawn to Richard and hoping for a deeper connection with him. I love how that relationship is played out not just in their direct interactions but in the background and through subtler moments.

For instance, when John of Gaunt dies, Aumerle comforts his father as Richard plans to seize Gaunt’s property, it’s Aumerle’s pleading looks at Richard that cause prompt his halfhearted ‘Why, uncle, what’s the matter?’ And in the deposition scene, before Richard enters, Aumerle is the last of those in attendance to bow to the newly crowned King Henry.

Early in the play, it’s clear that while Aumerle wants to be a part of Richard’s inner circle, and is to some extent, he doesn’t always feel comfortable with it. While Richard’s favourites always seem to know exactly what to do—they sweep immediately to his side when needed, for examplethis doesn’t come naturally to Aumerle.

At one performance, I saw Aumerle attempt to join Richard’s discussions with Bushy, Bagot, and Green on the fates of Mowbray and Bolingbroke at Coventry—but the group had already formed a circle around Richard, with no way in for Aumerle, who then retreated to speak with Salisbury.

In the scene at court after Bolingbroke and Mowbray have been banished, there’s a slight sense of nervous excitement about Aumerle that Richard’s attention has turned to him. I like what Marks does with Aumerle’s lines about accompanying Bolingbroke on his way out of the country. He delivers them beaming, so proud of himself for thinking of this hilarious joke that will amuse Richard, and no one thinks it’s funny—they all stare at him in silence and Richard forces a small, indulgent laugh.

Julian Glover is excellent as John of Gaunt, especially in the scene where he challenges Richard at Ely House, as you get the sense that his imminent death empowers him to finally say what he’s been thinking.

One character I especially like is the Duchess of York (played by Sarah Parks). Not only is Parks very funny in the role, she also well conveys the duchess’s love for her son—and the fire and spirit that lead her to think quickly and act quickly to save his life.

It’s a pleasure to see Oliver Ford Davies on stage again and he is just perfect here as the Duke of York. Not only does he bring great humor to the character, but his relationships with those around him always feel real, from his grief at John of Gaunt’s death to his annoyance with his wife to the hugely complex relationship he has with his son. He makes every word of Shakespeare’s language clear and York’s point of view understandable even if some of the character’s decisions are questionable.

I also enjoyed Leigh Quinn’s spirited Queen: she has a down-to-earth quality that’s touching, especially in the scene where she waits for Richard as he is being led away in chains.



Henry Bolingbroke (Jasper Britton) and Richard (David Tennant). Photo by Keith Pattison.

One thing that stood out on repeated viewings, that I love, is Tennant’s sense of spontaneity in the role. Every time I went I saw a different performance from him, each with their own fascinating moments.*

One night, for instance, as Tennant removed the crown from his head during the lines about the hollow crown, a strand of hair came off wound around the crown. Tennant delicately picked it out and idly played with it in his fingers for the next few lines, gazing at this small piece of a mortal king.

The deposition scene, as someone noted during the post-show discussion on the 12th, seems especially to inspire this spontaneity. Sometimes, for instance, we would see Richard take a deep breath as he prepares to hand over the crown following Bolingbroke’s line ‘Are you contented to resign the crown?’ On another night, during the deposition scene, he kissed the crown after removing it from his head, before then giving it to Bolingbroke. I once saw, after that section, Richard give a small sob whilst bent over on the ground in a bow to Bolingbroke, his face hidden by his hair, before stifling it and rising to quietly inquire ‘What more remains?’

The scene felt really different each night and this gave it an air of unpredictability. Although you knew what was coming, you never quite knew how—what the tone would be, how the balance of power would play out, how Richard would react to being deposed, which lines would be especially significant that night. I think that scene has to be one of my favorite moments of live theatre ever, partly for this reason.

Similarly, I admire how comfortable Tennant is with silence in a scene. There are a number of moments—Flint Castle, or holding out the crown in the deposition scene—with extended periods of silence, and these never once felt rushed through. These moments differed recognizably from night to night, too, which made them feel all the more real.


Aumerle (Sam Marks) and King Richard (David Tennant). Photo by Keith Pattison.

The first time we get a real sense of Richard’s vulnerability is in the scene on the Welsh coast. There’s an absolutely beautiful moment that starts this scene: King Richard running on, impatiently tugging off his boots, flinging them to the ground, and then flinging himself upon the ground that he’s so missed. Later in the scene, when everything’s changed, it’s desperately sad to see him slowly walk back and pick up those boots abandoned earlier in joy.

Tennant’s delivery of Richard’s beautiful speech about the death of kings is achingly poignant, with hints of sudden panic at this immediate confrontation with his own mortality. It’s such a contrast to what we’ve seen in the earlier scenes, and we start to realize how alone Richard is as he begins to envision his end.

That Aumerle cares for Richard is evident in this scene: he attempts to comfort him multiple times, and he seems certain that his family will defend Richard as he would. There’s also a sweet moment early on as Richard addresses the earth where Aumerle stands watching Richard, smiling at his imagination.

The scene at Flint Castle is stunning. It begins with probably the most beautiful image I’ve ever seen in the theatre: Richard standing tall on the ramparts of Flint Castle against a blazing orange backdrop, face upturned to the sun, Aumerle at his side, sceptre and orb in his hands, defiant despite knowing everything is about to crack in pieces. His speech is both opulent and incandescent, amid a backdrop of music tinged with the celestial. And then the moment it’s over the mask falls—‘We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not, to look so poorly and to speak so fair?’—and it’s simply two scared, sad men up on the lonely castle walls. The desperate circumstances allow for an intimacy that has escaped them thus far, and will only be possible here for a few brief moments.

I love Tennant’s almost flippant and matter-of-fact delivery of Richard’s lines on what must happen next, concealing a dawning realization that it’s all over and unbearable pain in anticipating what is to come. Aumerle’s weeping, meanwhile, is in contrast to his earlier farewell to the banished Bolingbroke, where he was unable to summon up any tears.

In what follows, it’s clear that Richard is trying to comfort Aumerle but is also expressing a desperate need to connect. He reaches out—as he did when searching for the hands of friends on the scene at the Welsh coast—and throws an arm round Aumerle’s shoulder, strokes his hair, rests his head against his head against Aumerle’s cheek when describing their imagined epitaph. When they find themselves suddenly face-to-face, the way they look at each other says it all. Aumerle’s tears move Richard to the point of letting go and leaning toward him for a tender kiss, and, as Richard pulls back, Aumerle reciprocates, flinging his arms around Richard as the two cling to each other with sudden force. Aumerle sobs into Richard’s shoulder as the two share an embrace, and it’s such a beautiful moment, of almost overwhelming emotion: these two men, up alone on the gantry, their legs dangling down, finding one small real piece of human connection in acceptance of what will be. As the moment ends, Richard gazes at Aumerle as though gathering every bit of strength he can before reaching forward once more to stroke Aumerle’s cheek and then finally standing up to address Northumberland.

Tennant turns Richard’s ‘Come down?’ in the scene at Flint Castle into a murmured request to Aumerle as he reaches a hand out to touch him one last time before descending to the base court. (At one performance, Aumerle impulsively grabbed hold of Richard’s arm protectively ahead of this happening.)

It’s a breathtaking sequence, a moment of real humanity for Richard as he foresees his downfall. Each time I went the audience was completely still for the whole scene—not a cough or a whisper.

The deposition scene is fascinating. It has a real air of danger, as Richard toys with Bolingbroke, at times suddenly veering from playful to accusing, such as when he forces Bolingbroke to literally ‘seize the crown.’ Tennant and Britton are a great match for each other in this scene that plays out as a carefully choreographed clash: Richard may win the battle of wits, but it isn’t enough, and it’s desperately sad to see him break down in this scene where he is otherwise in control. He turns what Bolingbroke hopes will be a simple transfer of power into a formal ceremony stripping him not only of his kingship but also his entire identity. Watching him prostrate himself before Bolingbroke, bearing in mind what has come before, is sickening.

I especially liked the way Tennant has Richard use the mirror as a prop. As he finishes the line ‘Was this the face that faced so many follies, and was at last out-faced by Bolingbroke?’ he turns, at the mention of Bolingbroke’s name, to him, with his own face hidden behind the mirror so Bolingbroke must look at his own reflection. Richard then peers out accusingly from behind the glass before delivering the next line at speed and suddenly casting the mirror to the ground.

At one performance I went to, when Richard entered for the deposition scene, Aumerle, unseen by Richard, took a step forward as if to go to him, but seemed to think better of it and retreated. Throughout that scene, it’s very clear what Aumerle is thinking as he watches Richard or stares in shame down at his feet. There is one terribly sad moment where Richard walks round the room, looking into the faces of each of the men. As he lands on the words ‘So Judas did to Christ,’ his eyes flick over to Aumerle accusingly, and Aumerle’s face falls, crumpling into tears. I noticed on one night, too, that Richard threw a glance at Aumerle on the line ‘God pardon all oaths that are broke to me.’ We see Aumerle watching, and waiting, and suffering, and then hanging back in the shadows while everyone else exits to come forward and state without hesitation in one rhyming couplet his feelings.

In a later scene, when his parents find the letter, Aumerle crumples to floor in tears, sitting with knees crossed like a child (echoing Richard’s posture in ‘For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground’). It’s clear that he recognizes it’s all over for him in that painful moment—that the dream of Richard retaking the crown will never happen; that Richard is doomed, and Aumerle is, too; that all his grand plans have come to nothing. His moment of realization here is very affecting.

As for the change to the end: although it is painful to watch, it is very effective, and I love it, even though I also hate it. The attention this production pays to Aumerle—he always seems like a part of the action, even when he’s in the background—makes the end really pay off.

I like how this production sets up so clearly what Aumerle does at the end, with piece after piece of evidence in the two scenes before Richard’s death providing a through line for his actions.

This production has Bolingbroke receive some sort of Richard-related letter just after pardoning Aumerle, thrusting the paper at him in frustration with the line ‘Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?’ (In the original text, we don’t see Bolingbroke speak this line at all—instead, Exton, absent in this version, tells us Bolingbroke said it.)

So the last bits of dialogue in this scene are thus:

HENRY BOLINGBROKE

I pardon him

With all my heart.


DUCHESS OF YORK

A god on earth thou art.


HENRY BOLINGBROKE

[receives letter] Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear? [gives letter to Aumerle]

Uncle, farewell: and, cousin too, adieu:

Your mother well hath pray’d, and prove you true.


And here Britton stresses the words ‘prove you true.’ It seems very clear what he means and sets up well Aumerle’s frenzied ‘From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed’ later.

As the scene fades into darkness, we see Aumerle studying the letter intently—and earlier in the scene, we saw him take Bolingbroke’s dagger which moments earlier Bolingbroke was threatening him with. So as Aumerle exits and the platform with the enchained Richard slides into view, there are very clear indications as to what’s going to happen next.

Still, it’s horrifically sad to watch, especially with the feeling Tennant and Marks invest in the scene. Aumerle stabs Richard from behind but then embraces Richard as he sinks down, dying, and holds one of Richard’s hands in his. When Richard pulls back the hood to see that it’s Aumerle, there’s an awful moment where the two men just stare at each other, reminiscent of the moment at Flint Castle where words were not enough. Tennant turns the beginning of the line here into a question—‘Thy fierce hand?’—as he reaches out to stroke Aumerle’s cheek. It is not a noble death, or a beautiful one; he dies in a grubby cell, in torn clothes, fully aware that someone dear to him has plunged the knife in. It’s clear that Aumerle starts to regret this from the moment he sees Richard’s devastated face staring at him.

I love that every time I went, people audibly gasped at the reveal of Richard’s murderer. I also like (maybe like is not the right word, as it’s pretty horrible to watch) how we are forced to watch the dead body of the king, eerily still, sliding backwards on the prison platform as that part of the set vanishes and Bolingbroke appears above.

In another link to the earlier moment with Bolingbroke pardoning Aumerle, that scene and the last one have a symmetry in the way they begin, with Bolingbroke on stage and Aumerle running in from the back each time. Aumerle seems genuinely stunned by Bolingbroke’s reaction here, choking out “From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed” with a panicked, pleading desperation, becoming slightly hysterical as the horror of what he’s done begins to fully dawn on him.

It’s a devastating end to a sad play, but I think it works because of this thread of Aumerle’s conflict weaved throughout the play.

So: I’m sad that this wonderful production is over (for us in the UK at least), but I’m so grateful to have taken part in the whole experience, from the six performances to the two talks I was lucky enough to get to go to. It’s been an intense couple of weeks but it’s been absolutely magical. I’ll turn now to the DVD (I suppose I shouldn’t be too sad, as the plays I like don’t usually get DVDs) and to learning more about this beautiful play. Although I’ve been utterly spoiled by how perfect this production is, I’ll certainly be in the audience for whatever versions grace the London stage next.



*Regarding spontaneity: there was a great moment in the first performance I went to, in the scene where Bolingbroke and his father discuss Bolingbroke’s recently imposed banishment. Britton delivered the line:

Then, England’s ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;

My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!

and then forcefully stamped his foot on the floor. This accidentally caused one of the iron rods lining the edge of the stage to become dislodged and fall onto the floor of the auditorium, nearly hitting the foot of someone sitting in the front row who gave a yelp. At this, Britton and Glover immediately corpsed and then Britton gave a little bow to the audience. He then said the next line—‘Where’er I wander, boast of this I can’—with the emphasis on ‘this’ and a glance toward the place where the rod once was.

Then, he and Glover left the stage, and Tennant (who with Richard’s favourites) had been standing in the background for this scene came forward wagging his finger at him! This also gave an amusing significance to his next line: ‘We did observe.’

@темы: Впечатления, RSC, "Ричард II", Шекспир, Дэвид Тэннант