Last Updated on May 22, 2024
An excellent Richard III at Shakespeare’s Globe
Richard III takes us back to a time of civil war in England where warring houses slug it out to achieve domination. This production leans heavily on the gender dynamics with a largely female cast performing or even hamming up masculinity and thereby throwing into sharp relief the contrast between the power games played by Richard and his male entourage and the misery and exploitation suffered by the women around them, reduced to relying on the power of curses to counter the violence done to them.
Michelle Terry is an excellent Richard III getting just the right balance of compelling charisma, petulance and chilling flashes of total ruthlessness. The mix of laughs with moments of horror is maintained throughout the production, with much of it played in almost pantomime vein – audience participation and slapstick laughs a plenty – which make the moments of pure violence and control even more gut-churning. After a long comic wind-up from the assassins, the Duke of Clarence’s murder is sickeningly graphic. Katie Erich puts in a moving performance as Lady Anne forced to marry Richard, her husband’s crass murderer, and locked into a silent trauma –mutely drinking the poison she is proffered when she is no longer of any use to his designs on power. Her final sign language curse of Richard from beyond the grave is a vicious enactment of revenge from a woman from whom the power of words has been stolen.
My one quibble with the production would be the attempt to cast Richard III as a Trumpian figure, breaking the bounds of the usual exercise of power. Yes, his entourage is eventually disgusted by his brutal attacks on his own family and followers, and by the end even he seems to have lost track of which of his allies he has disposed of. But one of the strongest scenes of the first half of the play is the return of Queen Margaret, the widow of the deposed and murdered King Henry IV to curse all of the House of York for the senseless violence they have wrought on the House of Lancaster, the murdered husband and sons. Against this background, it feels like Richard III is a product of a brutal Game of Thrones style macho political culture, rather than a proto-fascist or new populist phenomenon.
Indeed, it is striking throughout the play how poorly he does at garnering the affection of the people of London. Perhaps though, this is a tension within the play itself where the eventual triumph of Henry VII and the House of Lancaster has for political reasons been framed as a restoration of peace and order, rather than just the other lot reasserting control. Casting Sam Crerar as a non-binary Henry VII who beats Richard III with a largely female army in a finale does produce a satisfying resolution and hope of a future order purged of toxic masculinity.
Overall the production does an excellent job of maintaining tension and forward dramatic drive through a long and complex plot. The synopsis struck fear into my heart with the number of characters and the complexity of their relationships, but while names, titles and precise degrees of cousinship might get lost the political dynamics felt always real and vivid. It was only a shame that at times some of the dialogue was swallowed in a perhaps too dynamic delivery. My guest at the performance was an eleven-year-old, and it is a testament to the engagingness of the staging that he remained riveted to the end and keen to discuss what it all meant, despite, as he puts it, it all being in ‘Shakespearianish’.
Richard III runs until 3 August 2023
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
21 New Globe Walk,
London SE1 9DT
