By Michael Coveney
Tweet

Tricky Sticky Dickie

The strongest man is he who stands alone, proclaims Ibsen's hero in An Enemy of the People. And sometimes the strangest, too. There's something exhilarating about not agreeing with anyone, as I discover yet again in my reaction to Kevin Spacey's Richard III.

I don't hate it. I don't not admire its energy and verve. I just find the performance predictable, one-note and very, very shouted. And of course I bow to no one in my admiration for Spacey as an actor. He is electrifying in almost everything else I've seen him do, on stage and screen.

We thought he was making a big mistake when he played Richard II directed by Trevor Nunn a few years ago. But he packed a big surprise in that one, finding whole areas of the play, and the character, that leapt to life because he wasn't going down the usual sanctimonious route. In an interesting and creative way, he played against the grain and found the grit.

Add another "I" and you think you know what to expect. And there it is: an upfront malevolent psychopath with a twisted torso and crippled leg burning like a brazier and mowing down all and sundry in the intensity of his laser-like penetration and aggression.

But he's not funny, he's not wheedling, he's not sly and he's not the black intelligencer of the text and other people's opinion. The scene where he accepts the crown after refusing it, acting like the maid of folklore who says No but means Yes, is dissipated through the theatre, with characters in the stalls, some on the stage and Spacey himself on film. The theatricality, black humour and, above all, speed of the sequence is entirely lost. (As indeed is the brilliant opening of the play, fudged with an interpolated film extract of Edward's coronation.)

I absolutely loved Sam Mendes' 1992 RSC touring production with Simon Russell Beale as an undercutting, slickly poisonous toad of a Richard, famously proclaimed by Paul Taylor as the unhappy result of a one-night stand between Pere Ubu and Gertrude Stein. Russell Beale gave momentum to the character by virtue of being a resentful and revengeful outsider. Spacey owns the shop, as he owns the stage, from the outset.

I'm uneasy, too, about the portrait of Richard as an all-purpose pariah tyrant, with clear visual references to Colonel Gaddafi, President Mubarak of Egypt and even Mussolini - this last as Spacey is strung up by his feet at the end.

The programme notes bang on a bit about Gaddafi and Mubarak, too. An exiled Iranian friend of mine was in London this week and was telling me how very low we British are now held in the estimation of ordinary people in the Arab world. The hunting down and humiliating executions of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden have done our reputation as humane arbiters of justice and respecters of human dignity no good whatsoever.

But for years we approved and encouraged both Gaddafi and, especially, Mubarak. Now we've gone all pious and superior about them, however justifiably. And the sight of pampered liberal intellectuals like Sam Mendes with nothing to lose jumping on some politically mobilised band wagon, without understanding the global consequences, is frankly nauseating; to most ordinary Arabs in their coffee shops, at least.

Kevin Spacey himself probably approves the unauthorised execution of Osama bin Laden by his pal President Obama. Apart from the moral queasiness involved, he should stop and think about retaliation, and the future safety of passengers on American Airlines, which he advertises so assiduously on television.

The other thing about Richard III at the Old Vic is just how bad the supporting cast is. I am mystified by praise (admittedly muted) for Chuk Iwuji's Buckingham, who face-pulls blandly all evening and is memorable only for his extarordinary set of too-large flashing white teeth.

The less said about the American supporting actors the better - Clarence is totally incomprehensible, though Maureen Anderman as the Duchess of York is okay, just about. Our own Haydn Gwynne and Gemma Jones, as Queen Elizabeth and mad Margaret, do the best they can within the confines of a production that is short on ideas and long on bombast.

One idea, nicked from Bill Alexander's RSC revival with Antony Sher - now, there was a show, there was a Richard - is the coronation procession in a heavy ermine robe that ends the first act. But it doesn't have the same sickly impact as Sher's shuffle to the throne, the phsysical exposure, or that brilliant touch he added of breaking through the severe pain barrier of his deformity to seize the moment and the crown.

- by Michael Coveney

Any opinions expressed above do not represent the view of Whatsonstage.com nor any of its staff or contributors beyond the bylined author.

Related Content

Booking Tickets & Show Listings
	Richard III Listing Page

Other Posts By Michael Coveney
	Michael Coveney: Tales from New York in Kinky Boots - 17th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Finsbury hails its local Park Theatre opening - 15th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Hooray for Halifax and Carrie's ENO debut - 13th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: All change at Trafalgar, Liverpool and Finsbury Park - 10th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Critics come full Circle in centenary bash - 8th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: High old time with High Tide in Halesworth - 7th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Hytner steams on, Sondheim scintillates - 2nd May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Theatre queens and Paris low-life - 30th Apr 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Olivier big winners and Stratford long runners - 29th Apr 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Maria Miller basks in Ruth's Olympic glory - 26th Apr 2013 blog
	More...
Internal Links
	Richard II (Old Vic) - 5th Oct 2005 Reviews
	Photos: Spacey, Mendes & Cast Open Last Bridge Play - 30th Jun 2011 photos
	Review Round-up: Spacey's Richard III Wows Critics - 30th Jun 2011 roundup
	Richard III (Old Vic) - 30th Jun 2011 reviews
	Photos: Spacey Is Richard III in Final Bridge Show - 29th Jun 2011 photos
	Opening: Beggar's Opera, Richard III, Village Bike - 27th Jun 2011 news
	Top Five: Summer Shakespeares - 21st Apr 2011 features
	Cast: Chicken & Full Spacey Richard Company - 20th Apr 2011 news
	Cast: Scholey in Richard, Root's Sea, Full Butley - 25th Mar 2011 news
	Hall's Propeller Errors & Richard Hit Hampstead - 2nd Feb 2011 news
	Spacey Pulls Forward Bridge Richard to 2011 - 1st Dec 2010 news
	Mendes Directs Spacey in Bridge 2012 Richard III - 26th Aug 2010 news

Reader Comments