RICHARD II – REVIEW OF 2023 STRATFORD FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The current production of Richard II at the Stratford Festival is bound to evoke extreme reactions. No doubt there will be fans who find the staging brilliantly imagined and executed. Some will be less enthusiastic. Some will go to the Tom Patterson Theatre to see Shakespeare’s play but a look at the program should dispel that notion. Brad Fraser and Jillian Keily get equal billing in the byline, the first as adapter and the second as conceiver. Keily is also the director. My lack of enthusiasm for the result will become obvious.   

A glance at the cast list reveals a surprising entry. This production has an Army of Angels, fifteen in all, who appear right after the lights go down and almost never leave. Some of them wear angel’s wings, others are dressed like punk rockers with scant clothing and leather outfits. I never figured out on whose side the Angels were or what they were doing in the play in the first place. Yes, I realize that Richard believed that God sent angels to protect him.

Richard II is about the deposing of God’s appointed king to the throne of England and his replacement by a usurper. On the surface this is a serious crime not just against the deposed king and his subjects but against God.

In the opening scene we see the Angels and the King do a wild dance. There is more dancing and musical interludes to come. King Richard, as played by Stephen Jackman-Torkoff wears an over-sized crown suitable for a farce or an operetta and is dressed in see-through and frilly white clothes as in, well, a farce. He is immature, petulant, nasty, arrogant, irrational, childish, clownish, and generally disgusting. At one point we find him in a large hot tub, surrounded by angels where he engages in serious homosexual acts with his cousin Lord Aumerle (Emilio Vieira). The hot tub is brilliantly designed where people can go under a stretched sheet and appear as if they are underwater.

Stephen Jackman-Torkoff as King Richard II with members
 of the company in Richard II. Stratford Festival 2023.
Photo: David Hou

The public display of sexual affection and activity between Richard and Aumerle will be generously displayed. There are moments in Shakespeare’s play where Richard considers the meaning of kingship (the hollow crown) and approaching death. We are almost sympathetic to him when he expresses his conviction that he is God’s anointed king. Nothing like that happens in this production.

The two enemies, Bolingbroke and Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk, whose feud and subsequent banishment by Richard precipitates the crisis are supposed to settle it by personal combat. Richard in his irrational and idiotic behaviour cancels the bout before it begins and banishes the two aristocrats. In this production Fraser and Keiley have them engage in a boxing match.

Parts of Shakespeare’s play do emerge from the phantasmagoria and even with serious cuts to the text we hear some of Shakespeare’s lines but forget “this royal throne of kings.” Jordin Hall turns in an exemplary performance as Henry Bolingbroke, the eventual usurper who becomes King Henry IV. Richard treats him abominably and he rebels so he can get his titles and wealth back. He turns usurper when that becomes impossible. Hall is an outstanding, serious man to be reckoned with. His conscience bothers him to the end, and he wants to go on a pilgrimage to the Hoy Land to expiate his sins.

The role of the Duke of Northumberland in Shakespeare is played by a woman, Sarah Orenstein as an impressive Countess of Northumberland, forthright and fearless. Her son Hotspur is done well by Thomas Duplessie.

The light and special effects by Leigh Ann Vardy are out of this world befitting the production and a rock concert.

The costumes by Bretta Gerecke, once you get past Richard and the angels, are modern suits for some of the men and gowns for the women.

The noise from the stage and the opening night audience who started screaming as soon as the lights went just about drowned out some of the lines. What was left was good, but we will almost certainly forget. But we will never forget the work of Brad Fraser and Jillian Keiley. It surpassed our fantasies or was it nightmares.  Please don’t come back.

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Richard II by William Shakespeare, adapted and conceived by Brad Fraser and Jillian Keiley continues until September 29, 2023, at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestival.ca

James Karas id the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press