When Michelle Terry, artistic director of London’s Shakespeare’s Globe theater, decided to put on a production of “Richard III” with a feminist twist, she probably wasn’t expecting accusations of discrimination. But that’s what she got. The lead-up to the show’s premiere on Tuesday was overshadowed by controversy over the fact that Terry had cast herself as the villainous main character despite not having a physical disability.
The play describes a series of murderous machinations by which Richard, Duke of Gloucester, achieves his accession to the English throne in 1483, and the events leading up to his death at the hands of Henry, Earl of Richmond, who would become Henry VII. the first Tudor King. Richard, described as “deformed” in the play’s opening lines, has traditionally been portrayed as a hunchback, almost always by able-bodied actors, with only a few notable exceptions in recent years. (In 2022, Arthur Hughes, who has radial dysplasia, became the first disabled actor to play Richard for the Royal Shakespeare Company.)
When Shakespeare’s Globe announced his casting earlier this year, the Disabled Artists Alliance, a British organization, published an open letter condemning it as “offensive and unpleasant” as Richard’s “disabled identity is imbued and integral to every corner of the script.”
Shakespeare’s play, the statement added, “cannot be performed successfully with an able-bodied actor at the helm.” The Globe issued a forceful response noting that Richard would not be portrayed as disabled in this production and adding that, in any case, “the Shakespeare canon is built on a foundation of anti-literalism and therefore all performers should have the right to play all roles.” the papers”.
Until relatively recently, it was uncontroversial for a non-disabled actor to play a disabled role. Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal of an autistic character in “Rain Man” and Daniel Day-Lewis’ cerebral palsy lead in “My Left Foot” won best actor awards at the Academy Awards in the late 1980s. Today, the practice is increasingly controversial: Jake Gyllenhaal received a blow when he played an amputee in “Stronger” (2017), as did Dwayne Johnson in the action film “Skyscraper” (2018); Bryan Cranston was similarly criticized for playing a quadriplegic in “The Upside” (2019).
In the case of “Richard III”, the debate is more complicated, because Shakespeare’s representation of disability never aspired to something as noble as representing lived experience. His script, written in the early 1590s, drew heavily on the chronicles of Tudor historians who sought to portray the usurper Richard in the least flattering light. Among them were Edward Hall, who described Richard as having “wicked features, a crooked back, and the left shoulder much higher than the right”, and Thomas More, whose “History of King Richard III” framed Richard’s physique as a corporeal manifestation of his rotten state. Character: Shakespeare took this theme and ran with it.
Scholars long speculated that these accounts were exaggerated; Suspicions were confirmed in 2012 when Richard III’s bones were found under a parking lot and we learned that, although he suffered from scoliosis, a curvature of the spine, he appears to have been only slightly disfigured. . So there’s a curious argument here: When disability activists oppose any reimagining of “Richard III” that reduces or erases the disability aspect, they are actually arguing to preserve a caricature.
And what if the true source of the play’s interest lies elsewhere: in its portrayal of Machiavellian intrigue and political arrogance? This was the angle taken by the Globe production, directed by Elle While and which runs until August 3.
Here, Terry turns the role into a grotesque histrionic of crotch-pushing selfishness, playing Richard’s cynical manipulations for laughs as she abruptly switches between insincerity and megalomaniacal directness. She is a stunning sight in a ruffled blouse, leather jacket and biker jeans, sporting a sloppy peroxide coif that reminds me of serial sex offender Jimmy Savile. Later, she swaps the top for a chiseled silicone torso, but there isn’t a hump, real or not, in sight of her.
One by one, Richard eliminates all the characters that stand between him and the throne; His victims are unceremoniously thrown into a trapdoor and then return to visit him as ghosts of reproach. The killing spree is punctuated by scenes of political bombast in which he interacts with several raincoat-clad actors embedded in the audience, representing a rabble of citizens. The action is soundtracked by the foreboding rhythms of an impressive band whose saxophonist bears a striking resemblance to the Bard himself.
Here and there, new lines have been inserted into Shakespeare’s text to highlight its contemporary relevance in a world dominated by strong, macho men. There was knowing laughter when Richard made a couple of statements taken directly from Donald Trump. Ironically, the theme is emphasized by an almost exclusively female cast.
The decision to present the play as a parable of the resurgence of chauvinism, rather than a psychological portrait of one man’s vengeful malice, is not without precedent. A 1920 production in Berlin by Jewish director Leopold Jessner presented “Richard III” as a defense of Weimar republicanism at a time when German democracy was threatened; in Jürgen Fehling’s 1937 production, Richard appeared as a clubfooted propaganda minister reminiscent of Joseph Goebbels; and interpretations by Donald Wolfit and Laurence Olivier, in 1939 and 1944, openly compared Richard to Hitler.
The show’s message about the perniciousness of misogyny is well communicated, but as a show, it’s a mixed bag. Although Terry’s bravado is convincingly dynamic, and Helen Schlesinger gives a measured and balanced performance as the pinstripe-clad Buckingham, some of the actors in supporting roles, of which there are many, struggle to convincingly play male characters. Vocal delivery (timing, rhythm, and intonation) proves challenging: too often, players resort to a generic shout that, over the course of three hours, becomes exhausting. The fun gradually fades after intermission and the Globe tradition closing their productions with a happy dance rhythmas was the case in Shakespeare’s time, it only partially distracts from the sense of anticlimax.
Entertained but not enthralled, I couldn’t help but think that the show and the controversy around it were indicative of a creative culture in which political gestures obscure important concerns. Maybe we should pay less attention to casting and more to craftsmanship.
