Theatre in Review: Richard III (Belasco Theatre)As the largely ecstatic press notices have indicated, among the many reasons to catch both productions from Shakespeare's Globe in London include the opportunity to see the plays produced in a fair approximation of the Elizabethan style (including all-male casts) and to see Mark Rylance in two wildly differing roles. Having seen Richard III, let me add another: This may be the most cogent, carefully considered, and powerful version of this play that you may ever come across. Despite its popularity as a star vehicle -- I've seen it tackled by Laurence Olivier on film and Denzel Washington, Ian McKellen, Michael Cumpsty, and Kevin Spacey, among others, on stage -- Richard III poses enormous challenges. The complex backstory is hard to grasp unless you've recently seen the Henry VI trilogy (a highly unlikely occurrence), and sorting out the characters and their political positions can be a chore. For more than three-quarters of the running time, there is remarkably little suspense, as Richard eliminates one human obstacle after another in his reach for the English throne. Even with a really magnetic actor in the title role, Richard III -- not a short work -- can become a little monotonous before some real opposition erupts in the final battle scenes. Tim Carroll's production dispenses with these problems with remarkable ease. Thanks to the stunning lucidity of the performances -- this is arguably the best-spoken Shakespeare in my experience -- the chess moves of Richard's schemes are made deliciously clear as he plays Yorks against Lancasters, does away with his brother, King Edward, and his sons, and brazenly woos Anne, Edward's widow and the daughter-in-law of the late King Henry Vi, both of them murdered by, yes, Richard. As one member of the court after another falls prey to his ambitions, the suspense builds: How far can he go before heaven itself will strike him down? Leave it to Rylance, one of the most inventive actors alive, to come up with a thoroughly original take on Richard, one that contributes mightily to the play's dramatic arc. Stuffed into a canary yellow doublet, his hair wandering in all directions, he hobbles around the stage, punctuating each line with a barking laugh that lacks even a hint of mirth. This Richard is accustomed to playing the fool, even when speaking about himself in coldly realistic fashion. ("But I/That am not shape for sportive tricks/Nor made to court an amorous looking glass ... "). To the eyes of the court, he is a weakling and a fool; inside, he is a psychopath, blind to any reality but his own, and subject to wild mood swings. To spend even a few minutes with him is to hang on tenterhooks; one has no idea what he will do next -- and neither, one suspects, does he. Like any good Richard, Rylance takes the audience into his confidence, but it is a creepy form of intimacy that often makes us laugh against our better judgment. When he says, "We speak no treason, man: we say the King is wise and virtuous and his noble queen well-struck in years, fair, and not jealous," he maliciously emphasizes the words "well-struck in years," then turns to us, in shocked propriety, shushing us for enjoying the implied insult. When he instructs a confederate to spread the rumor that his brother, Edward, was a bastard, he adds, "But touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off/Because you know, my lord, my mother lives," you would think him the very soul of tact and good taste even while blackening his mother's reputation. And the scene in which, posing on a parapet above the stage, bookended by monks and perusing a prayer book in order to convince a skeptical citizenry of his fitness for the throne, is a bitterly amusing reminder that politicians have been hiding behind the Bible for a very long time. For all we know, all of Rylance's performance will be in this black comic vein. But as Richard comes within reach of his evil goal, there are darker and more unsettling undertones; having seized the throne, he turns to Buckingham, his right-hand man, and forces him to kiss his withered hand, a gratuitous act of humiliation aimed at his closest collaborator. (He gets full value out of the play's many famous lines, including "I am not in the giving vein today," spoken when denying Buckingham the title for which he has lusted.) Later, when meditating on the river of blood that he has unleashed and plotting fresh horrors, he says, "But I am/So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin/Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye," and you feel the chill of his unfettered ambition. The turning point of Carroll's production is the scene in which Richard, to consolidate his power, tries to convince Queen Elizabeth, his sister-in-law, to consent that he marry her young daughter. Since he murdered her two sons, his entreaties fall on deaf ears. As Elizabeth, Samuel Barnett, his posture ramrod-straight and gliding around the stage with eerie self-possession, at long last supplies the resistance that has been missing all evening, denouncing Richard's sins to his face with clarity and vigor. The effect on Richard, who has hidden his crimes behind an insinuatingly friendly manner and a veneer of piety, is profoundly destabilizing. Caught out, he visibly disintegrates as the scene progresses. Soon after, as armies rise up against him and his supporters slip away, he greets each piece of bad news with psychotic rage, a murderous baby thwarted by forces he can't control. Carroll stages the battlefield scenes with welcome economy, allowing Richard and Richmond, the leader of the opposition, to occupy the stage simultaneously, as one short scene follows another in the run-up to war. In a production filled with incisive performances, the standouts include Barnett, who combines a plausibly feminine manner with a solid undergirding of steel; Liam Brennan's Duke of Clarence, recounting his dream vision of Richard's crimes before being executed himself; Angus Wright, a most elegant conniver as Buckingham, who realizes too late that he is next on the hit list; and the double-cast Kurt Egyiawan, whose Duchess of York, Richard's mother, is a deeply distressed voice of reason and whose Richmond exudes a dignity and sense of purpose that stands in stark contrast to Richard's viciousness. As the production notes in the program reveal, Jenny Tiramani's set design is an authentic Elizabethan interior with an upstage oak screen based on an existing design at Oxford University, with side galleries for on-stage audience seating. Her costumes are stunning period creations -- among them Buckingham's intricately woven doublet, Queen Elizabeth's imposing black mourning dress, and the ermine cape that Richard claims as king -- and authentic down to last the detail. (My one quibble is with the scene in which Richard, in a dream, is tormented by the ghosts of his victims, who appear trussed up in white muslin. I know that they are supposed to be in winding-sheets, and I'm sure that they are historically accurate, but they look like badly realized ghost costumes for a Halloween party.) Stan Pressner's lighting is cunningly conceived to support the conceit that the production is happening at the Globe, an outdoor theatre, with only candlelight for illumination; in the second half, the lighting slowly fades in imitation of the falling sun. It's a carefully wrought effect that also supports the play; as Richard's evil spreads, darkness falls on England. In such an atmosphere, sound design would be a crime -- believe me, these actors don't need reinforcement -- but the music, by Claire Van Kampen, scored for an ensemble of Renaissance instruments, adds much to the atmosphere. (If you go, get there early, both for the music and to see the company dress and make up on stage in full audience view.) The result is a production firmly anchored in the Elizabethan era yet featuring a lead character whose psychology couldn't be more up to date. Rylance's performance calls to mind the many murderers and madmen who have exerted dictatorial power in our own time. The toxic combination of evil and political power has rarely been so vividly rendered.--David Barbour 
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