Richard III, and: As You Like It (review)

Lindsay Posner, director of San Diego’s Old Globe’s production of Richard III, endeavored to connect Richard’s machinations to dictatorship and political turmoil in the twentieth century. This attempt was to make the play recognizable to contemporary audiences that are familiar with the Cold War, Big Brother, and loyalty oaths. Posner was successful in creating the atmosphere of doublespeak, spying, and betrayal through the performance of Jay Whittaker as Richard.

Whittaker’s version of Richard astutely conveyed the ambition, subtlety, deceptiveness, and cruelty of Shakespeare’s villain. Slim and muscular, Whittaker projected Richard’s physical deformities so that they elicited both pity and dread. Instead of wearing padding to indicate a hunched back, he maintained a posture that kept his left shoulder raised and his left arm and hand curled close to his body. His left leg was visibly braced from hip to foot. The distorted posture and brace forced Whittaker’s Richard to walk by taking long strides, swinging his braced leg forward. This grotesque maneuver disclosed not the pitiful aberration of a handicap but the aggressive cruelty of Richard’s character. From the nervous gnawing of his hand to his violent outbursts to his derisive deceptions, this Richard was dynamic, mercurial, and fearsomely effective. Whittaker’s handling of the verse was articulate and nuanced, whether confiding to the audience or dissembling at court.

The brutal stage setting consisted of tall, wide panels around the rear and sides of the acting space. During the first half of the production, these panels displayed layers of graffiti and shadowy images of huge eyes. After intermission two larger panels were added upstage right and center; they celebrated Richard’s kingship with military portraits of him wearing the crown. The upstage-right panel showed Richard astride a white horse, his pose and costume emulating David’s portraits of Napoleon crossing the Alps. In this portrait Richard-as-Napoleon was surrounded not by mountains and clouds, but by artillery, jet fighters, and tanks. The upstage-center panel portrayed a large bust-length portrait of Richard. This portrait looked directly at the audience, and the right arm was raised in a Nazi salute. Surrounding his head, rays of rockets spiraled outward from his crown to form a halo. This second set of panels served as the backdrop against which Richard was crowned, betrayed his friends, and threatened or killed his rivals. The Old Globe version of Richard III represented a milieu where women were essentially powerless and where all of them distrusted Richard—even Anne, who succumbed to his...