In a swirl of smoke, a lone, spectral figure, dressed in a khaki military topcoat, a visored officer's hat and black boots, suddenly appears on stage.
The face is gaunt, almost cadaverous, the body ramrod straight. One arm, unnaturally rigid, rests ominously in the coat's side pocket. "Now is the winter of our discontent," he snarls, his voice spitting out the words of one of the best-known Shakespearean soliloquies.There may have been more flamboyant beginnings to William Shakespeare's "Richard III," but none as chilling as Ian McKellen's entrance in this startling production from Great Britain's Royal National Theater. It has started a 16-week American tour at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The opening brilliantly sets the tone for what is to follow, a tyrant's climb to power and the eventual collapse of a society under one man's malevolent rule.
"Richard III" was directed by Richard Eyre, who has run the National since 1988. The director has set the play in 1930s England, transporting and transforming this tale of royal treachery into a commentary on the rise of fascism and totalitarianism.
It's not a gimmick, but a cogent, carefully thought-out attempt to illuminate one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, one that often sinks into melodrama or outrageous and unsatisfying black humor.
Richard, in Eyre's modern-dress production, is that most dangerous kind of military man - a gung-ho soldier without a war to fight. Instead, he turns his attention to the throne and how to claim it for himself. It's a task Richard accomplishes with remarkable efficiency, using a combination of horrific violence and savvy public relations. The man is a master manipulator, and McKellen plays him with a sinister charm. You can see the evil behind the forced, icy smile.
There was no doubt an actor of McKellen's caliber could negotiate the play's verse with ease. Yet he also brings a physicality to Richard that goes beyond the hunchbacked stereotype the monarch conjures up in the minds of most theatergoers.
McKellen's tyrant is only slightly stooped, but he is partially paralyzed on his left side. The infirmity gives the actor the opportunity to display a little bit of technical show-biz bravura: doing everything - from lighting a cigarette to putting on a glove - with his right hand.
No other member of the large cast quite matches McKellen's good-mannered ferocity, but that's as it should be. He is the focus of the play, after all. Still, there are several fascinating portraits. Anastasia Hill is a sexy Lady Anne wooed by Richard over the body of her dead father-in-law. Terence Rigby is a sturdy Buckingham, Richard's cohort in evil, until he, too, is consumed by the violence. And Rosalind Knight plays Richard's mother as a disapproving dowager who looks like she just stepped out of "Upstairs, Downstairs."
As Richard tightens his grip on power, his outfits change, and so do our perceptions of him as someone increasingly more monster than military man. By the end of the play, he is in black shirt and pants, and his followers are wearing armbands - red crosses against a white background. If the reminders suggest the symbols of Nazi Germany, they could be the trappings of any totalitarian regime.
The final confrontation between Richard and the young, almost wimpish, Richmond is something of a letdown - and a puzzlement. Richard is in full armor for a battle that obviously is set in the 20th century.
Yet it is a minor quibble in an exhaustive production that is so full of ideas and a genuine Shakespearean star performance, the likes of which haven't been seen in New York in a long, long time.
"Richard III" will be in Brooklyn through June 21 and then move on to Washington, St. Paul, Minn., Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It's not to be missed.
- WHAT OTHER CRITICS SAID:
- Frank Rich, New York Times: "Mr. McKellen's king is a stunning antiheroic alternative to the archtypal Olivier image," echoing the comparison of McKellen, knighted by Queen Elizabeth last year, to Sir Laurence Olivier. He praised McKellen's "highly sophisticated sense of theater and fun" and his "frightening insidious portrayal of a Machiavellian politician," adding "theater of this ferocious immediacy is one import this country cannot do without."
But Rich said the remainder of the cast was "far below the high National Theatre standard visible right now at its home base (in London)." Others agreed praising McKellen's "stunningly chilling performance" despite an "uneven" supporting cast.
- Clive Barnes of the New York Post: "McKellen is diamond sharp . . . He turns Richard into a caricature of a Hollywood . . . version of a British World War II officer and gentleman, barking out his poetry in Sandhurst's rasping bombast, relishing his insolence and glorying in his class villainy."
- Howard Kissel, New York Daily News: McKellen "minimizes Richard's hunch and maximizes his arm, `like a blasted sapling, withered up.' At one point, brandishing it in an enemy's face, he makes you believe the arm has no bone and is as soft as a large soggy fungus."
- David Patrick Stearns of USA Today wrote: " . . . McKellen strides toward the audience in 20th century military garb and issues his `Now is the winter of our discontent' speech like marching orders, thrusting the audience into a world of modern military coups hatched in smoky rooms under fluorescent lights."