There are basically two ways of presenting Richard III: as the culmination of a cycle or as a standalone drama. And, although I think it only makes total sense when seen in the context of the Wars of the Roses, Sam Mendes has come up with a beautifully clear, coherent modern-dress production in which the protagonist becomes an autocratic archetype.
But the real buzz and excitement stems from Kevin Spacey’s powerful central performance.
Spacey doesn’t radically overthrow the Laurence Olivier concept of Richard the Satanic joker, as Antony Sher and Ian McKellen did. What he offers us is his own subtle variations on it: a Richard in whom instinctive comic brio is matched by a power-lust born of intense self-hatred.
Photo: Bloomberg
You see this right from the start when Spacey sits moodily slumped in a chair watching newsreel footage of his brother’s regal triumph. As he reaches angrily for the zapper, you get an instant sense of exclusion: Richard as the misanthropic outsider who will use a veneer of quick-witted charm as a ladder to the throne.
What is impressive about Spacey is that he acts with every fiber of his being. His voice has acquired a rougher, darker edge. With his left leg encased in a caliper splint, he still bustles about the stage with ferocious energy.
But it is the eyes that one remembers. They reveal the depth of Richard’s self-loathing when Lady Anne succumbs to his wooing and finds in him, as he does not, “a marvelous, proper man.”
The eyes also view the uppity Buckingham with a lethal, basilisk-stare. But the moment I shall cherish from this performance is that of Richard newly enthroned at the start of the second act. Spacey’s eyes express the momentary exultation of power only to move in a second to a restless insecurity.
Inevitably one has to ask what difference modern-dress makes to Spacey’s Richard. The production doesn’t use it, like Richard Eyre’s with McKellen, to comment on the fascist potential of 1930s England.
Instead, contemporary clothes remind us how today’s dictators seek spurious constitutional legitimacy and become skilful media manipulators.
There’s a brilliant sequence when, as Richard seeks the votes of the London citizens, Spacey is seen on video at prayer with a pair of bogus monks whom, at a crucial moment, he shunts out of shot.
But I shall remember Spacey’s Richard less for its political insight into the world of Gaddafi and Mubarak than for its psychological understanding of solitude. In the excellently staged eve-of-Bosworth scene, where Richard’s victims sit behind a long table like a committee of the dead, Spacey cries, “there is no creature loves me.” That strikes me as the keystone of a superb performance.
The stress on Richard’s aloneness exacts a certain price. Chuk Iwuji’s smooth-suited Buckingham never seems close enough to Richard to make his rejection politically tumultuous. And, although Mendes and designer Tom Piper preface each scene with a caption announcing the name of the protagonist, the characters often seem like ciphers in the drama of Richard’s psyche. Intriguingly, in such a male-dominated play, it is the women who emerge most strongly.
Haydn Gwynne catches perfectly the moral revulsion of Queen Elizabeth at being enlisted by Richard in seeking the hand of her daughter even though he has murdered most of her relatives. Gemma Jones also makes Queen Margaret not some ranting harpie but a stern-faced necromancer who uses sticks and earth to put a curse on Richard and who turns up at Bosworth as his nemesis. And Annabel Scholey makes Lady Anne’s capitulation to Richard’s saturnine charms almost credible.
I still like to see Richard III as the climax of a cycle. But this production brings the Bridge Project, with its mixed Anglo-American cast, to an exciting conclusion.
What’s more when the history of Spacey’s Old Vic regime is written, I suspect it will be his Richard, left dangling upside down like the slaughtered Mussolini, that will be most vividly remembered.
And, even if Olivier used the same trick in Coriolanus, that simply shows Spacey is part of a great tradition.
Last week, Viola Zhou published a marvelous deep dive into the culture clash between Taiwanese boss mentality and American labor practices at the Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) plant in Arizona in Rest of World. “The American engineers complained of rigid, counterproductive hierarchies at the company,” while the Taiwanese said American workers aren’t dedicated. The article is a delight, but what it is depicting is the clash between a work culture that offers employee autonomy and at least nods at work-life balance, and one that runs on hierarchical discipline enforced by chickenshit. And it runs on chickenshit because chickenshit is a cultural
By far the most jarring of the new appointments for the incoming administration is that of Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) to head the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF). That is a huge demotion for one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Tseng has one of the most impressive resumes in the party. He was very active during the Wild Lily Movement and his generation is now the one taking power. He has served in many of the requisite government, party and elected positions to build out a solid political profile. Elected as mayor of Taoyuan as part of the
Moritz Mieg, 22, lay face down in the rubble, the ground shaking violently beneath him. Boulders crashed down around him, some stones hitting his back. “I just hoped that it would be one big hit and over, because I did not want to be hit nearly to death and then have to slowly die,” the student from Germany tells Taipei Times. MORNING WALK Early on April 3, Mieg set out on a scenic hike through Taroko Gorge in Hualien County (花蓮). It was a fine day for it. Little did he know that the complex intersection of tectonic plates Taiwan sits
When picturing Tainan, what typically comes to mind is charming alleyways, Japanese architecture and world-class cuisine. But look beyond the fray, through stained glass windows and sliding bookcases, and there exists a thriving speakeasy subculture, where innovative mixologists ply their trade, serving exquisite concoctions and unique flavor profiles to rival any city in Taiwan. Speakeasies hail from the prohibition era of 1920s America. When alcohol was outlawed, people took their business to hidden establishments; requiring patrons to use hushed tones — speak easy — to conceal their illegal activities. Nowadays legal, speakeasy bars are simply hidden bars, often found behind bookcases