It’s nice to dream of a time when disabled actors are used so often and in so many types of roles, that we don’t have to discourage others from playing them. And it’s true that the historical Richard probably suffered from nothing more than scoliosis, as an analysis of his recently discovered skeleton suggests. Shakespeare, I’ve said before, was a poet, not an osteopath.
But what was once the norm may now seem like some kind of skilled mummy, trying to get around this production by offering a Richard without any physical restraint. When other characters, and even the man himself, disdain his handicaps and mock his ugliness, we are compelled by the evidence of our senses to treat the mockery metaphorically. (Richard, we tell ourselves, is morally toad-like, not physically.) And while I usually enjoy seeing familiar characters in unfamiliar skins, in this case the sidestep blocks access to the drama’s deepest elements.
Those elements are what keeps the otherwise ragged “Richard III” in the repertoire. The verse is extremely sharp and the questions are clearly eternal. When a production makes us ask to what extent Richard’s malice is the product of people’s hatred of him as opposed to his previous hatred of himself, it forces us to ask the same of our own leaders. In this season of our discontent, the scene where Richard cynically holds up a Bible while a roused crowd shouts to make him king is one that may sound familiar to you.
While we are not allowed to ask those in-depth questions in this production, there are compensations. The staging itself is beautiful, with Myung Hee Cho’s spinning circles of Gothic arches speeding up the action and suggesting the grimness of Richard’s rise and fall. (The arches are lit in gorgeous shades of pink and purple by Alex Jainchill.) Dede Ayite’s witty costumes from different periods score sociological points at a glance, from Anne’s tacky trophy female regalia to the dazzling gold sneakers of the doomed young princes.
Also glittering are some interpreters in supporting roles, which in this piece means all roles except Richard. Sanjit De Silva turns Buckingham, the king’s chief enabler, into a whipped hype man, high on the vapors of ambient amorality. Paul Niebanck makes a powerful impression as Richard’s brother George, who mistakenly believes he can talk his way out of anything. And as Queen Margaret, Henry’s widow, Sharon Washington demonstrates with brutal efficiency how specific hatred can quickly become general and scorch everyone, even herself, in his path.
But these coherently portrayed characters do not correspond to a coherent interpretation of the play, which wavers between garish polemic and a sort of Tudor moustache. It may be that “Richard III” cannot be interpreted in that sense; Written to flatter Shakespeare’s royal sponsors, who were descendants of victorious Richmond, its brilliance has always carried the sour odor of propaganda. That sourness isn’t mitigated by the fact that, to modern noses, the good guys smell a lot like the bad guys. If history games can’t untangle for us what history itself leaves a mess, they should at least help us figure out why.
Richard III
Through July 17 at the Delacorte Theater, Manhattan; publictheater.org. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes.