Richard II

Director Paul Barstow has chosen to do Richard II in the grand manner, with trumpets, banners and fancy costumes. This kind of theater can be very striking, but every detail must be perfect. And even then, if the play is to be more than a pageant, the actors must make their characters live.

Unfortunately there are enough discordant elements to the Loeb production to set the spectacle awry, and the decoration gets in the way instead of contributing to the total performance. Too few of the actors build convincing characters, and even fewer of them show the audience how these characters are related emotionally to the others in the play.

So despite some excellent moments, the production seems more a succession of fine speeches and finely-framed scenes than an integrated dramatic whole.

The effectiveness of the show element in theater depends to a large extent on its seeming natural to the audience, just as half a courtier's elegance is in his non-chalance. Servants should be graceful, heralds dashing; and if the audience notices them it should be only briefly, and with pleasure.

Heraldic Clutter

But Barstow's Richard is full of nervous servants and of soldiers who cannot precede the King down stairs without appearing to be very much afraid they will trip. It was a clever idea to include a draw-bridge in the set, but the one in the current production draws attention to itself with its creaking, instead of adding splendor to Bolingbroke's entrance over it. And while much can obviously be done with heraldic devices in all the history plays, this Richard is literally cluttered with them.

I place this discussion of spectacle first because Barstow clearly tried to put on a spectacular Richard. The points may seem trivial, but they are examples of how he failed. The costumes and decorations are pretty; the frequent presence on the stage of two dozen people is sometimes impressive. But all this contributes little to the production as a whole, and in many ways it detracts.

Spectacle Detracts

The spectacle is the first thing about the performance the audience--and the actors--must deal with, and often it gets in the way. If Mark Bramhall, as the Bishop of Carlisle, had not had to spend most of the time fully vested to celebrate a high mass he might have been able to seem noble, as Bolingbroke describes him, instead of vaguely pained.

Richard II is written entirely in poetry, and Barstow has evidently impressed this on his cast, for almost every actor is more the master of the verse he speaks than of his movements or his characterization. It would be silly to say the poetry gets in the way, but painfully few of the actors get beyond it. The text does not give much character to the minor lords, but several of them do not even behave like normal people.

Robert Justice, as Lord Willoughby, for example, runs in to announce a plot to murder King Henry, and then stands with his eyes closed for the rest of the scene. And two or three members of the company invariably look bored during the most dramatic scenes, when their attention should be focused on Richard. One does not see a deposition every day.

Two splendid exceptions to this general carelessness in the minor roles are Aumerle (Louis Lopez-Cepero) and Harry Percy (Richard Cornish). Admittedly everyone knows the Hotspur young Percy will become, but Cornish has only about 20 lines to remind us of him, and he does so with grace and charm.

Lopez-Cepero, who is on stage a lot more than he speaks, is the only person in the cast except Kerr who does much with his movement and his eyes. David Mills is also clearly trying to do something with John of Gaunt. Sometimes he talks angrily, sometimes wearily, but I at least could not find the pattern, nor see what his relationship to Bolingbroke is.

Of the major characters, Bruce Kornbluth's York is very fine. He plays his part with a combination of hesitation and nobility that must be incredibly hard to attain. And, significantly I think, he makes his fantastic wig and makeup seem part of him, not just something stuck on to show he is old.

I do not think Arthur Pellman played Northumberland correctly. He blusters, and though early may certainly bluster, Northumberland is a very hard man. A man of such inflexible will would not sputter as Pellman does, he would speak distinctly. Of course, Barstow has decided to have all the North-country lords speak with a heavy accent, and if the bluster is part of the brogue, it may not be Pellman's fault.

Enigmatic Bolingbroke

Having seen Peter MacLean display his talents in other roles, I can only assume that he consciously decided to play Bolingbroke absolutely straight, without characterizing him any more than the text does. Bolingbroke is an unscrupulous man, but he does what he does with a kind of grace.

Either a sympathetic or an unsympathetic interpretation would probably be justified, and either would be interesting to see. MacLean is probably "correct" in choosing neither. At the same time I wonder why he balances these two extremes with an almost total absence of gesture or inflection, and relies solely on his rich voice to sound noble and tough.

MacLean's Bolingbroke never smiles, and he never looks worried--even when he talks of his "unthrifty son." There must be some reason for Bolingbroke's solemnity, but MacLean never lets the audience know why he plays from behind a mask.

Even if the rest of the cast were far worse than it is, it would be worth going to see Richard to see Philip Kerr in the title role. He moves beautifully. He can hold the audience with a gesture, and switch the focus of attention with a glance. He has devised a death scene--for I understand he staged it--which is a small ballet.

His voice is rich and varied, and if at times he speaks too prettily, perhaps that is the way the part should be played. The only detail that bothered me was his way of staring ahead with his eyes bulging open; it did not seem appropriate all the times he did it.

Undefined Richard

Those who regard Richard II as a showcase for one actor may wonder why I praise Kerr so greatly, yet leave him to the end, and why a show with such a star is unsatisfying. But I think the key to Barstow's Richard is in Richard himself. For, though Kerr is a joy to watch, he does not project a united characterization.

That is to say, I was much more aware of his gestures and inflections than of the poet-king he was supposed to be. Why, for instance, was the death scene staged like a ballet? And if Richard was a minor poet, who could be fascinated by Bolingbroke's tired pun on "shadow," why does everything come to him so automatically? Why does he never stop to think of the next line?

I would rather Kerr had played the part with a stutter and given some feeling of the character, and by extension, of what it was like for England to have such a king. Perhaps it is because the other actors--except Lopez-Cepero--do not respond to what Richard says or does that Richard seems detached from the rest of the play. But, poet-king or no, Richard had consequences, and Barstow's production does not give us much sense of them, except as a few lines that people say.

I am not sure what Barstow could have done. Perhaps more inspired blocking would have helped. More might have been done with the response to York, who often looks like a man talking to statues. But whatever the remedy in detail, Barstow's production appears to be the result of sitting down at the beginning and saying, "Here are the lines. How shall I stage them beautifully," not, "This is what the play is about. How shall we make that clear?"