You know you're seeing Shakespeare done well when the play itself really comes through and envelopes you - when the greatness of the source material is most clearly legible - and that's certainly true of this very strong "Richard III". Turns out that I knew the play pretty well, though I can't remember the last time I read it (years ago, at any rate), and this production does it justice, Ewen Leslie's vivid turn as the titular villain and the handsome sets particularly striking. One issue - and frequent stumbling block - with staging Shakespeare is the extent and manner to which the play is contemporised, but here it works well, with a consistent thread running through costumes, sets and the more intangible aspects of style, the play's bloody action located in a non-specific but more or less contemporary setting, dressed in images of militarism and political power and thereby dramatising the murderous impulses that underlie their exercise and expression, which in a sense is what the play itself is all about.
[part of an MTC subscription with Steph & co]
[part of an MTC subscription with Steph & co]
