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by William Shakespeare, directed by Miles Potter

Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford

June 2-September 25, 2011

It’s tit for tat, really.  Last year the Stratford Festival allowed Brian Bedford to play the role of Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest.  So it’s only fair that this year it should allow Seana McKenna to play the title role in Richard III.  Neither move was groundbreaking at the Festival.  In 1972 Pat Galloway played the title male role in Alfred de Musset’s Lorenzaccio, a 1834 play modelled after Shakespeare history plays, and in 1975 William Hutt played Lady Bracknell in Earnest, later revived in 1976 and 1979.  The difference between last year’s Earnest and this year’s Richard is that everything about Earnest was remarkable from the design to the direction and the acting of the rest of cast, whereas this year’s Richard is deadeningly unremarkable in all those areas.

Up until the Restoration in1648, plays in England were written for all-male companies with the women’s roles played by boys.  It is only logical, therefore, that in recent times people should re-examine aspects of gender in those plays.  Toronto has seen an all-female Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2001 and the all-male Queen’s Men performed three 16th-century Shakespearean source plays in 2006.  Canadian Stage presented a role-reversed Taming of the Shrew in 2000 with Yanna McIntosh as Petruchio and Jordan Pettle as Kate, and in 2009 it presented The Tempest with Karen Robinson as a female Prospero.  In the UK there have been many more experiments along these lines.  Edward Hall formed his all-male Propeller Company to examine Shakespeare’s plays while acclaimed actors such as Janet McTeer, Fiona Shaw and Vanessa Redgrave have performed, respectively, Petruchio, Richard II and Prospero.  Kathryn Hunter has made rather a specialty of this having performed Richard III, Lear’s Fool and King Lear in recent years.

The main disappointment with Stratford new Richard III is that neither director Miles Potter nor Seana McKenna take any advantage of the great opportunity they’ve been given.  Potter presents no discernible interpretation of the play and, quite surprisingly, McKenna presents no discernible interpretation of her role.  She is dressed as a man and plays the role as if she were a man.  A female friend remarked that as a feminist she couldn’t see the point.  “Why doesn’t she own the role as a woman rather than a man?” she asked.  Potter could have expanded on aspects of the First Tetralogy of which Richard III is the conclusion.  The former Queen Margaret, an old woman in the play, is, in the Henry VI plays the strongest and most villainous female character Shakespeare ever created.  Richard, as Scourge of God, basically finishes Margaret’s work in wiping out the deadwood of decrepit dynasty to make way for the glorious Tudors of Shakespeare’s day.  Margaret is so savage, she is said to have “a tiger’s heart wrapp’d in a woman’s hide”.  Why not portray Richard then as a woman and a second Margaret? 

McKenna is, of course, one of the greatest speakers of Shakespearean verse in Canada.  She makes even the most complex lines absolutely clear.  She begins the play with a rough, lower pitch voice, growls her lines and foregoes her usual facial gestures.  However, soon after the death of King Edward, she drifts back into her own voice and reverts to her favourite Lady Sneerwell mode of delivery, perfect for Restoration comedy, but with its emphasis on wit is totally devoid of malevolence.  The first mode resurfaces briefly when Richard dismisses Buckingham without reward, but a Richard III who does not exude malice is hardly capturing all there is in the role.  When it comes to Richard’s “I am I” soliloquy after the ghostly visitation, McKenna focusses so much on wordplay that any sense of Richard’s despair is lost. 

It’s difficult to do with a play like Richard III, but Potter manages to drain it of any atmosphere of fear and danger.  The general energy level is low and much of the cast seem only marginally engaged in their roles.  Potter seems to regard the production as simply as showcase for McKenna and nothing more.  His decision that Anne and Elizabeth really do give in to Richard’s outrageous demands means that he creates no tension between what we see and Richard’s self-centred interpretation of it.

The best performance of the evening comes from Yanna McIntosh as Queen Elizabeth, wife of Edward IV.  In most productions this role is unmemorable, but not here.  McIntosh gives us a strong, vital woman, willing to do anything to defend her right to rule and that of her children.  In her encounters with Richard, Elizabeth actually comes off as the stronger character, which is certainly not as it should be. 

The rest of the cast is uneven.  On the plus side is Roberta Maxwell, who rises to heights of anger as the Duchess of York, Richard’s mother, torn apart by the knowledge she has borne such a son.  Nigel Bennett is an appropriately pompous Hastings and Andrew Gillies provides a much-needed note of sanity and calm as Lord Stanley.  Paul Fauteux makes far more than usual of the murderer Tyrrel’s soliloquy of repentance, while Sean Arbuckle, in a change from his wise counsellor roles, is chilling as Catesby.

The minus side finds normally fine actors floundering, likely through lack of direction.  David Ferry portrays the dying Edward IV as some kind of lower class, drunken Irish lout.  Bethany Jillard can’t seem to get a handle on Lady Anne.  Michael Spencer-Davis loses our interest in his fate as Clarence.  And Shane Carty portrays the Mayor of London as a clown.  Martha Henry has great presence as Queen Margaret, but she decides that her character is nothing like the mad witch people say she is.  Rather than being eaten up by her defeat and humiliation, Henry’s Margaret appears supremely wise.  This, of course, does not accord with what Margaret does in the play.  Why would a supremely wise woman go about cursing the entire court or later gloat over Elizabeth’s misfortunes?  Someone ought to have reminded Henry of Margaret’s heinous cruelty and murders in the action prior to Richard III.  Otherwise, actors like Wayne Best as Buckingham are are at best pedestrian.  

Peter Hartwell’s design is standard-issue Olde England, with rather too many identical slit-sleeved gardcorps.  Someone should have realized that giving almost all the men and even young Prince Edward the same stringy Prince Valiant wigs makes them all look slightly ridiculous.  Potter’s two best ideas are to have Lady Anne present on the throne when Richard, in her hearing, plans her demise and to have the ghosts themselves render Richard defenseless in battle to ready him for Richmond’s coup de grace.  Fans of McKenna will naturally flock to the play as will those curious to see a woman in one of Shakespeare’s great roles.  They will likely discover to their chagrin that non-traditional casting means nothing if a production lacks insight.               

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Seana McKenna as Richard III.  ©2011 David Hou.

For tickets, visit www.stratfordfestival.ca.