Richard III by William Shakespeare, Texas State University, February 12 - 16, 2013

by Michael Meigs

Richard III is a portrait of a monster.  He's a killer, more forthright than Iago and without a shred of the scruples of Macbeth.  This is the protagonist who tells us he's going to court a grieving royal widow as she stands over her husband's body "though I kill'd her husband and her father," and achieves that impossibility. She agrees to marry him.

The immensity of this deformed soul's shamelessness is astounding.  Richard III was the portrait of a sociopath before the diagnosis was invented, the story of a demon in human form.  The single-mindedness of Richard's evil is grotesque, and if this story hadn't been presented in Shakespeare's verse, it would have been worth little more than the prancing devil of a provincial church pageant.

A further complication is that this 1592 play opens in medias res -- it's a direct continuation of Shakespeare's galumphing first three plays, Henry VI, parts one through three, in which the Yorks and the Lancasters fight it out.  A director may be tempted simply to assume all that background away, throwing his audience directly into the maw of this deformed and demented protagonist with his memorable opening line "Now is the winter of our discontent."  American audiences, especially university audiences, certainly can't tell a white rose from a red one.  It was all a long time ago and in England, and who cares, anyway?


 

Director Chuck Ney's ingenious approach to establishing this dense plot line and making us care about it is to situate it an unspecified airport.  While waiting for the action to start, we hear the distant crossing whine of landing airliners.  When the lights come up, we find ourselves in a shabby security room with banks of old-fashioned television sets.  Eugene Lee has a remote control in hand, and after he settles his twisted figure into an office chair, pops a can of Heineken and hits the button, those TVs come alive.  We see brief videos in multiple images across all those televisions, recording the confrontation when Richard gunned down the Lancaster Prince of Wales, the ceremonial accession of Richard's brother Edward and the shrill denunciations of widowed Queen Margaret.  There's an equatorial third-world look to all of it, and many of the faces are those of people of color.

The texts of these videos are taken from the final scenes of the Henry VI plays.  By this point, before Richard first speaks directly to the audience, spectators understand that bloody business has been underway, the reigning king is no saint and the ousted queen is ferocious and bereaved.

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

RICHARD III by William Shakespeare, Texas State University, February 13 - 1, 2013

(Texas State University Theatre Center, 430 Moon Street, San Marcos)

presents

Richard III

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Chuck Ney
February 12 – 16 @ 7:30pm & February 17 @ 2:00pm

Probably Shakespeare’s greatest history play, Richard III tells the Machiavellian rise of the hunchbacked Duke of Gloucester who becomes King Richard III. Starring Artist-in-Residence Eugene Lee, this production takes a modern look at this classic tale of greed, corruption, and the pursuit of power.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

ALT Correction (the best kind): SIX Austin Area Artist Listed as Falstaff Award Nominees by PlayShakespeare.com

In addition to the five Austin area artists mentioned in ALT's report of the 2011 Falstaff awards and nominations released this week by www.PlayShakespeare.com, Christopher Fordinal of Texas State University is recognized for the music done for Texas State University's production of As You Like It in April of last year. ALT commented in its review:

Director Chuck Ney chose to situate this production in the present day. That interpretation opens opportunities, particularly musical ones. Among exiled Duke Senior's men are a number of nimble-fingered strolling guitarists. Wry Jacques, the philosopher of the exiled band, is a sinewy aged African American [Eugene Lee] who elicits a rhythmic blues riff from the Duke's acoustic guitarist for his "ducdame" satire of "Under the greenwood tree." The celebration of the deer hunt in IV, 2 is a haunting a capella rendition in the twilight of "What shall he have that kill'd the deer," much in the style of Seattle's Fleet Foxes. Members of the wandering band do "a lover and his lass" with guitar and improvised percussion like street busking music, and Sean McGibbon performs break dancing with the energy and assurance of competition-level gymnastics. The final celebratory dance is a memorable cross between a contra dance and a hoedown.

Congratulations to Christopher Fordinal and to director Chuck Ney. ALT apologizes for overlooking him in the first scrutiny of the list.

As You Like It, Texas State University, San Marcos, April 6 - 16

Marketa Fantova's designs for As You Like It at Texas State University established at a glance the intentions of director Chuck Ney. The action opens at Duke Frederick's court, a bare space at the front of the wide thrust stage, bounded to the rear by a high, chill wall with a blue metallic sheen. That wall initially appears featureless, except for the edifice of steel tubing and dark metal treads parked against it -- the sort of movable ladder one might expect to find in a warehouse. Concealed doors open from that blank wall, including one at the top of the edifice. Characters descend or climb those precarious stairs that sway, suggesting a subtle danger.

The court is equally bare and cold. Young Orlando is angered by the neglect shown to him by his elder, inheriting brother Oliver. Duke Frederick, the ominous usurping head of this city state, stalks onstage accompanying by bodyguards whose chief function is to walk and stalk in step with him.

When the duke's daughter Celia and her banishéd best girl friend Rosalind flee to the forest, the metal barrier vanishes, to reveal a striking, deep stage picture very similar to that depicted on the poster for this production. Fantova has established progressive inclines running from side to side of the stage, usable as steps or as ramps, and she uses cylinders of white semi-lucent fabric to suggest the trees of a grove, perhaps of birches. Although exiled Duke Senior speaks to his band of the "icy fang and the churlish chiding of the winter's wind," their white and blue world, though suggested merely, feels far warmer than that of the court.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: As You Like It, Texas State University, San Marcos, April 6 - 17

Received directly:

presents

As You Like It

by William Shakespeare

directed by Chuck Ney

April 6-9 and 13 – 16 at 7:30 p.m., April 10 and 17 at 2 p.m.

Texas State University Mainstage Theatre

430 Moon St., San Marcos, Texas (click for map)

Tickets: $10 general admission and $7 for students with a valid Texas State ID.

For reservations, call the Texas State Box Office at (512) 245-2204. Tickets will go on sale beginning Wednesday March 30^th at 10:00 a.m.

[poster: Geoffrey Douglas]

As You Like It, one of Shakespeare’s best loved comedies, tells the story of Rosalind, a banished young woman in search of her father, the deposed Duke. Disguised as a boy, she meets a young man escaping unfair treatment at the hands of his brother, as well as a band of dissenters and musicians living in exile. All discover the joy of love, friendship, and forgiveness in the Forest of Arden, but not without disguises, clowning, music, and love at first sight. Featuring original music by Christopher Fordinal and set in modern day, this production speaks to our contemporary world – even in a time of displacement and economic hardship, love, friendship and transformation still exist, and it is still possible to see the world as you like it. (Image by Dakota Smith: Angeliea Stark (Rosalind) , Keylee Koop (Celia), and Oscar Cabrera (Orlando))

Hamlet, Scottish Rite Theatre, September 16 - October 3

Those lustrous eyes, that bony frame, that complexion sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought -- many of us believe that Justin Scalise was born to play Hamlet.

He has certainly trained for Shakespeare and for this role, in New Orleans, in England, and for the past three years in Austin. We have seen him as Bottom, Feste, Adam & Silvius, Don John, Mercutio and Lucio. And even Hamlet, freeze-dried, for Austin Shakespeare's 2008 and 2009 World's Fastest Hamlet.

This Hamlet drected by Andrew Matthews for the Scottish Rite Theatre is a keen, intelligent, entertaining and gripping production. Scalise has the principal role but this evening offers much more than just an outing for his fan club.

This cast knows how to speak the speech. Babs George as Gertrude, Harvey Guion as Claudius, Robert Deike as a whole suite of ordinaries, Brock England as Horatio, Chuck Ney as Polonius. . . the verse comes trippingly on those tongues. It's a thrill to hear it delivered articulately, with convincing scansion and appropriate targeting and emotion. The action is swift but unerringly certain. There are moments when one would like to see a bubble of silence as a character reflects or absorbs the meaning of something just said. But anyone who has studied the play, read it or seen any other version of Hamlet will follow the players all the way and will be on the edge of his seat.

Matthews has put them into contemporary costume but does not burden the play with unnecessary concept or gimmickry. No telephoning in performances, no AK-47s, no roller skates or cowboy hats. The familiar, haunting action develops immediately before us in the intimacy of the Scottish Rite Theatre, using a minimum of portable furniture placed as needed before various of its intricate trompe-l'oeuil 19th century painted backdrops. The striking, appropriate music before the play is recorded.

In this version, the play's the thing.

Read more and view images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .