Ralph Fiennes Next in Line as Richard III and No One Can Take His Crown

Ralph Fiennes takes on the psychopathology of Shakespeare's most notorious villain, Richard III, photo courtesy of Miles Aldridge

             Shakespeare’s Richard III at the Almeida Theatre, under the masterful vision of Artistic Director Rupert Goold, is the hottest ticket in town at the moment. If you can get your hands on one, that is. The Almeida, with its capacity to seat 325 people, makes this reworking of Shakespeare a particular rarity in its intimate access to stars of such high caliber. It's been 16 years since Ralph Fiennes stepped foot on the Almeida's stage. He's back and better than ever to take on Shakespeare’s most notorious villain and lead antagonist, who will do whatever it takes, and kill whomever it takes, in his pursuit of the British throne. With Vanessa Redgrave making her Almeida debut playing Queen Margaret, it’s a match made in theatre royalty.

 Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner

             The play begins on an excavation site, where a curved spine is unearthed – a reference to the 2012 discovery of Richard III’s bones in a Leicester car park. The spine soon is reanimated and reattached to its rightful owner, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Fiennes is given a protruding “S”-shaped spine, which pokes through his clothes and even his armor. He has also adopted a limp and a disfigured, unusable, right hand. These new adjustments haven’t come without taking their toll on the actor, who confessed to Radio 4’s Front Row, “I’ve got a lot of tension in my left side. I’m monitoring it day by day, because it’s three hours where you’re putting your spine out of true…I’m not in pain, but I’m aware.”

Ralph Fiennes tries his new spine on for size, photo courtesy of Miles Aldridge

             Hildegard Bechtler’s set design illuminates the driving force of the play, the king’s crown, at the back of the stage, where it sits cloaked in a distinct sense of foreboding. From the same wall, skulls emerge one by one as physical trophies of the lives lost to Richard’s hit list. With even the tiniest of touches, the chainmail curtain clinks and sways, rising and falling to reveal silhouettes in a shadowy kingdom where no one is safe.    

             What Fiennes delivers with razor-sharp precision throughout his performance is the ability to turn on the audience at a moment’s notice. Fiennes brings charm and humor to the role, so much so that we almost forget about Richard’s murderous intent. Well, until he snaps. He has us laughing one minute and recoiling in horror the next. One of the most chilling moments occurs when he fixates his frosty gaze on the audience and his insincere smile morphs into a scowl. Holding a rosary in his hand, Richard raises a clenched fist, the cross dangling helplessly in his crushing grip.

 Richard is triumphant in gaining the crown, but the skulls symbolize at what cost, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner

             In his Radio 4 interview, Fiennes warned, “I don’t want the audience to escape into a relaxation of humor.” With Fiennes’ calculated portrayal of Richard, and because we can read his every micro expression and often meet his steely stare, he needn’t worry. He is terrifying enough to make me shrink in my seat when he passes by in the aisle. I’m reminded of scary films, where most people’s coping mechanism is to laugh, especially when viewing them in the public setting of a movie theatre. Why then, are their hands clammy or their faces pale?

             It is this same unease, this false sense of security, that Fiennes lulls us into when he addresses the audience, cajoling us to laugh, but then condemning us for doing so. Richard’s threats are not empty; they are in fact so bold that they are delivered to his rivals’ faces. He licks William, Lord Hastings’ (James Garnon) blood from the chopping block. His lascivious advances on Lady Anne (Joanna Vanderham) and his rape of Queen Elizabeth (Aislín McGuckin) are nothing short of uncomfortable. No, this is certainly not a man in whose company we can relax, even with humor. It’s Fiennes doing what he does best: playing a good baddie.

The cast of Richard III mostly wore modern dress, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner

             I spoke with Thomas Weaver, Associate Artistic Director of Gamut Theatre Group in Pennsylvania in the United States, who was visiting London for the very first time. He waited from 4pm at the Almeida Theatre to get a ticket for the 7pm showing. As someone who often puts on Shakespeare plays and has seen his fair share of them, including various productions of Richard III, I asked him what he thought about Fiennes taking on the role: “He wasn’t playing a villain; he just was a villain. There was an honesty to it. It just felt natural. He was saying, 'You may be watching me seduce this woman, but don’t forget who I am.’”

             Redgrave forces you to sit up and listen when she makes her infrequent but powerful appearances as Queen Margaret. She seems to stealthily creep up out of nowhere, issuing her curses, before she shrinks away again into the darkness. The self-proclaimed “prophetess” clutches and coos at a baby doll and wears a boiler suit, giving the impression of someone who’s not “all there.” When Richard deflates the doll’s head in his hand in an attempt to stop her truthful warnings, Queen Margaret might be the sanest person in the room.

Richard loses his temper with Queen Margaret (Vanessa Redgrave), photo courtesy of Alastair Muir

             Richard III is set in a time period of which we are not certain. It seemingly unfolds in a contemporary age, with the cast in modern dress. The sharp suits make them look like members of the mafia – stylishly nefarious. Richard’s henchmen (Daniel Cerqueira as Catesby and Mark Hadfield as Ratcliffe), with their blood red gloves, have distinctly East End London accents. Richard pops a Berocca into a glass, which effervesces into a familiar fit of orange. Phones are cleverly used as a means to communicate and distribute information, much as we would show a friend photos from last night on ours. Then, the final scene introduces armor and swords, and we are transported to a far more distant time.

When the gloves come out, you know Catesby (Daniel Cerqueira) and Ratcliffe (Mark Hadfield) are up to no good, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner

             As Richard dies and plunges back into the grave where he came from, the excavation team returns. There he will lie, until he is rediscovered (with the same amount of enthusiasm) time and time again by audiences the world over.

We end where we began: Richard's final resting place, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner

             Richard III is playing at the Almeida Theatre until August 6^th, but due to high demand, you might have to get a little creative and be a little tenacious when it comes to securing a ticket. Find out what your options are here.

             The company will be taking the production to Crotia for the Kazaliste Ulysses Festival from August 11^th – 13^th. Almeida Theatre Live is being launched in partnership with Picturehouse Entertainment. Cinemas around the world will have the opportunity to see Richard III broadcast on July 21^st. For your nearest screening and to book tickets, visit the website here.

This gives me goosebumps...

A Monday Evening Visit to Uncle Vanya

Paul Rhys stars as John, our modern-day Uncle Vanya, photo courtesy of the Almeida Theatre

             Robert Icke, Associate Director at the Almeida Theatre, returns off the back of his Oresteia West End success with a reworking of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. This production is not for the faint of heart, but rather for the seasoned theatregoer who appreciates a natural progression of events. Uncle Vanya’s aim is not to sugarcoat life, but to highlight the complexities of it – warts and all. The play spans three hours and 20 minutes, with three 10-minute intervals, so make sure you’re in it for the long haul.

             With a stream of great actors, Uncle Vanya’s cast includes: Jessica Brown Findlay (Sonya) and Tobias Menzies (Michael), both of whom you’ll know from Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror television series, Paul Rhys (John), who is simply superb, Vanessa Kirby (Elena), Richard Lumsden (Cartwright), and Hilton McRae (Alexander) – among others.

             What I love about the Almeida is that, each time I visit, it sheds its skin to adopt a new one even more glorious than the last. Each show comes with its own unique stage assembly and I thought I was seeing things when I first set eyes on the Uncle Vanya setup. The cast is encased in a wooden frame, shaped into the bare bones of a 3D cube. Once my eyes had adjusted, I realized that the structure was in fact moving, albeit slowly. As someone on the outside looking in, as if at caged zoo animals, there is nowhere for the actors to hide. The stage places everyone in the limelight at one point or another, before it rotates to obscure some, whilst exposing others.

Elena (Vanessa Kirby) lives in a state of perpetual boredom, photo courtesy of Manuel Harlan

             The reworked play’s central plotline hints at the subtle interactions that occur amongst individuals. Alexander, a well-established professor in the city, retreats to his countryside estate with his much younger and lust-worthy second wife, Elena. Through maintaining the estate, John (the brother of Alexander’s late first wife) and Sonya (Alexander’s daughter from his first wife) keep Alexander and Elena in the lifestyle they have grown accustomed to.

             John and Michael, Alexander’s doctor, become enamored with Elena, whose exquisite beauty and vapid personality makes for a deadly combination. Meanwhile, little Sonya loves Michael from afar, hiding in the shadows while she’s outshone by her stepmother’s looks. The crux of the play arrives when Alexander suggests selling the estate for Elena’s and his own monetary gain, a declaration that unhinges John to startling proportions.

             For a Monday night, Uncle Vanya certainly provided some heavy introspective viewing, but that’s Chekhov for you. With themes of stifling boredom and a “youth is wasted on the young” undercurrent, the audience is prone to agree with Michael’s sentiment: “Life is boring.” Amongst the highs and the lows of day-to-day living, there exists a resting equilibrium, which could be described as the monotony of life. Icke’s Uncle Vanya captures that in a painstaking commentary about the cynicism of human nature.

Doctor Michael (Tobias Menzies) becomes the unassuming target of a love triangle, photo courtesy of Manuel Harlan

             The sad, hollow characters of Uncle Vanya seem to be stuck in limbo – merely surviving, rather than living. For instance, Sonya pleads with Elena, “Don’t be bored; it’s contagious.” It’s precisely that notion of boredom as contagion that floods the play. Elena manages to sap the life out of everyone around her, while not really having anything interesting to say while doing it. The soliloquys reveal a lot about the internal states of the characters. The conclusion? Perhaps it’s better not to think and not to philosophize with an intellectual mind. It can only lead to unsatisfactory ruminations, and thus, an unsatisfactory life.

             My favorite philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, penned “Hell is other people” in his existentialist play, No Exit, which is an absolutely enlightening read. Rather than being a physical place, Sartre suggests that hell is a metaphysical place. There’s only one word to describe being trapped in a room with vacuous, unbearable people complaining about inane, petty things, and that’s hell. Uncle Vanya perfectly embodies this idea for me. Not only are the characters tired of one another, but it’s also tiring as hell to watch them in their restless and perpetually unhappy states – ceaselessly pacing, pacing, pacing.    

John and Sonya (Jessica Brown Findlay) share a heart-to-heart, photo courtesy of Manuel Harlan

             To quote another philosopher, Albert Camus: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” Paul Rhys as John (our modern-day Uncle Vanya) certainly grapples with this rather bleak ultimatum. He deteriorates beautifully throughout the course of the play. As he teeters on the brink of exhaustion and being fed up, he bubbles over with heart-stopping vulnerability and frailty. Just as he begins to simmer, life’s state of affairs carries on as normal without him, as if nothing ever happened. The stage continues to move at a sluggish rate, like life’s cycle, which stops for nothing and no one.

             Uncle Vanya is running at the Almeida Theatre until March 26^th. Showings of the play are relatively sold out, but you might still be able to grab Day Seats or returns. Check ticket availability here.

Switch to Silent Mode for Carmen Disruption

Photo courtesy of the Almeida Theatre

             As I waited in the Almeida Theatre’s lobby before viewing Carmen Disruption by Simon Stephens and directed by Michael Longhurst, I perused my program. How coincidental that the very thing I was reading about paralleled a long time fear of my own: technology and its detrimental effects. Stephens, the award-winning playwright behind The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (reviewed on my blog here), wanted to channel how media alienates and disconnects human relationships. He was also intrigued by the way in which European cities all start to blur into one. The unusual medium that he chose to tell his story was opera, specifically Georges Bizet’s Carmen. While Stephens was listening to the music from Carmen on the Underground, he realized that people’s lives possess operatic elements and he set out to reveal the inner Carmen in all of us.

The singer (Sharon Small), photo courtesy of Marc Brenner

             In the United States, 40 percent of people admit to being lonely, a number that has doubled in 30 years. In Britain, a registered charity is devoted to ending chronic loneliness. As Elizabeth Renzetti notes in the program, “It is the great irony of our age that we have never been better connected, or more adrift.” I second this sentiment wholeheartedly. In fact, some might say that my soapbox is talking about the way we use our phones and social media and how this is resulting in a society where we are more alone than ever before. Not only are we isolating ourselves from human interactions and relationships, but we are also forgetting how to forge those relationships in the first place.

             This is the age of dating apps like Tinder, where someone can say whatever they please while finding comfort in the protective aspects of their phone. Translate that to the real world, and suddenly, the same individual doesn’t have the confidence to recite the same line in person. Stephens muses, “How many truly fascinating conversations have you been part of, then pulled out of when you get a text message? We start to split ourselves off from other people.” This is a question we should all ask ourselves, yet it is most likely avoided because of what the answer might unveil. I could rant about this topic for hours, but I will spare you all and turn back to the matter at hand.    

Don José (Noma Dumezweni), photo courtesy of Marc Brenner

             Carmen appears to have been given a new burst of life in London at the moment. The opera is currently running at the English National Opera. I have never seen it in person, but after watching it for the first time on DVD, I was hooked. I recently attended a performance of Matthew Bourne’s The Car Man, which was a sensually modern retelling of the original through dance (review coming soon). Last but not least, the Almeida Theatre is presenting Carmen Disruption, where a disruption is exactly what we received.

             If you are unfamiliar with the storyline of Carmen, it is most likely one that you already know because it is rooted in love, jealousy, and human nature. The opera is based on a novella by Prosper Mérimée. It charts the love triangle between feisty cigarette factory worker Carmen, solider Don José, and bullfighter Escamillo. She dangerously toys with the two men’s hearts until she is eventually killed by Don José when Carmen seems to favor Escamillo. Carmen’s death outside of the bullfighting arena coincides with Escamillo’s killing of the bull inside the arena.

 Carmen (Jack Farthing), photo courtesy of Marc Brenner

             Carmen Disruption alluded to this tragic ending with a silent but forceful character in the shape of a dying bull. The realistic-looking animal, with its chest heaving up and down, acted as an inescapable foreshadowing that could not be avoided throughout the entirety of the play. The performance had its own versions of the characters from the opera. This time around, Don José (Norma Dumezweni) was a hardened taxi driver, Escamillo (John Light) was a money-crazed global trader, Carmen (Jack Farthing) was a stunning, self-absorbed male prostitute, and Micaëla (who was supposed to marry Don José; Katie West) was a disillusioned teenager. Then there was the singer (Sharon Small), who travelled to different cities playing the role of Carmen throughout the play, and the mysterious chorus member (Viktoria Vizin), the spirit of Carmen.

Escamillo (John Light) and the symbolic, ever-present bull, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner

             Vizin is an internationally-renowned mezzo-soprano and has played Carmen 100 times in 17 productions overall. As she belted out the songs and arias, the unexpected lyrics hung in the air: “We feel the skin of your telephone…” It is not the skin of others we feel anymore from genuine human contact. There is actually a cuddle service, where people can pay a lady for cuddles. To me, this is a sign of the times, a sad one at that. It is human nature to crave human contact, yet we just aren’t receiving it in the same way that we used to. The Almeida Theatre's productions always keep me on the edge of my seat, because they often deal with serious subject matter. While the typical show tunes of the West End are predictably feel-good, it can be a breath of fresh air to sink my teeth into something meatier with more substance.  

The spirit of Carmen (Viktoria Vizin) and Carmen (Farthing), photo courtesy of Marc Brenner

             The permeating intrusion of technology was felt strongly throughout the play. An LED board flashed words at us throughout the play to indicate incoming texts or other messages. The singer was utterly anxiety-ridden without her phone and found conversation difficult. Carrying a suitcase of pills from location to location, she frequently said she would need to look up details or names she had forgotten by consulting her phone. In other words, she could not function without it.

             The paths of the unlikely characters would cross in the street. They were so fixated on their phones that they didn’t realize where they were going and almost bumped into one another. This reminded me of an excellent video I saw online, where the artist imagined a world where people never look up from their phones and what the consequences of that might be (watch it below).

Wowwww.upfade.com
Posted by StreetArtGlobe on Saturday, April 25, 2015

             We are increasingly living in a digital age, where if we don’t keep up, we get left behind. One of the lines in Carmen Disruption is that porn tells you more about a country than anything else. Micaëla started an online flirtationship with one of her teachers, where they would exchange sexual Skype encounters. All of these things are examples of being violated through a computer. Some people believe that cyber bullying cannot exist, simply because we can all turn off our computers or other electronic devices at any point. It is worth thinking about though that cyber bullying would not exist if we did not have access to such devices. Micaëla goes on to describe naked photos as honest, because that nakedness is the most honest thing a person can give of themselves. Photos shared online are there to stay and haunt you forever.

Micaëla (Katie West), photo courtesy of Marc Brenner

             There’s a scene in Carmen Disruption where a boy on a motorbike was killed and the first thing that everyone did at the crime scene was take out their phones. To document this boy’s memory, complete strangers took selfies with his mangled body. While I was eating at a restaurant the other day, the couple across from me were barely talking to one another. Perhaps they had been in an argument, but the first thing the woman did when her dessert arrived was snap a photo of it on her phone. No doubt she will have posted that photo on some form of social media, exclaiming what a “wonderful” meal and time out she was having with her husband. The phone occupies an ominous space at the dinner table now. It’s the ultimate third wheel, but through the individual’s choice.

             There seems to be a disconnect in the way that we interact with others in today's society. Micaëla wanted someone to know her, so much so that they know what she does with her hands when she walks. When Don José visited her son, she was moved that he remembered how many sugars she took in her tea. She felt as though someone noticed her and thought about her. It’s about the way we make each other feel. It’s in these small gestures that we really get the feeling of knowing someone, not superficially, but really intimately knowing them. It’s hard to do that when we’re too distracted by our phones, when we’re in a virtual world that does not exist outside of this real one, a life that we only get the chance to live once.

Let me take a selfie, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner

             The standouts of the night for me were Farthing (Carmen), Light (Escamillo), and Vizin (the spirit of Carmen). Farthing oozed sexuality and self-importance to veil an underlying mask of insecurity. Light reminded me of Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, speaking in the same monotonic, calculated way. Vizin beautifully and chillingly brought the play to life with her opera singing. Although the characters occupied the same stage space, they were each absorbed in their own bubble. The running thread throughout the whole play that connected them was the spirit of Carmen.

It's a shame I couldn't fit the man to the right of me with his iPad in as well...

             The singer became so linked to Carmen that she didn’t know where she ended and Carmen began. Carmen the lover, Don José the fighter, Micaëla the lost girl, and Escamillo the macho: there are elements of all of them running through each and every one of us. Depending on the circumstances, we choose who we let loose into the world. Stephens’ reimagined version of Bizet’s Carmen was awakening and different, a true theatrical achievement.

             I leave you all with one of my favorite YouTube videos called “Look Up” by Gary Turk. You might have already seen it, but I beg you to take its message to heart. Remember to look up, people. Who knows what you could be missing when you’re looking down.

             For a dose of disruption, book your tickets for Carmen Disruption until May 23^rd here.

For another great YouTube video on the same theme, view Prince Ea’s “Can We Auto-Correct Humanity?” here. If you would like to share your opinions on the matters discussed in this blog post, I’d love to read them below!

Mike Bartlett Ups His Game at the Almeida Theatre

Are you game?, photo courtesy of Visit London

            I almost didn’t recognize the Almeida Theatre as I made my way, not to a particular seat, but to a zone for Mike Bartlett’s play, Game. Each audience member was allocated to a different zone with its own unique vantage point. I was handed a set of headphones and entered a confined space decked out in camouflage. A cushioned seat and three television screens greeted me, along with my fellow viewers, who sat a little too close for comfort. I would soon learn that grazing arms with the person next to me would not be the most invasive encounter of the evening.

             The shutters previously obscuring my view opened and introduced a couple in their new home. With my headphones nestled securely to my head, I tuned in to the voices of Carly (Jodie McNee) and Ashley (Mike Noble). Suddenly, I was no longer an avid audience member, but a voyeur in the most Hitchcock way imaginable. The set, or should I say house, was very cleverly devised. It had all of the elements of a “dream house:” a kitchen that spilled into the living room, a spiral staircase, a hot tub, and lots of open space.

             Meanwhile, my headphones were picking up sounds from elsewhere, sounds that synchronized with what the television sets were broadcasting. It became apparent that I was looking at audience members seated in separate zones, while the actors made their rounds to each one. Not only were we watching then, but we were also being watched by unseen strangers, veiled under a cloak of camouflage.

 Carly (Jodie McNee) and Ashley (Mike Noble) move into their "dream house," photo courtesy of Keith Pattison

             Before I viewed Game, there was an air of mystery surrounding it, because I like to approach the theatre by keeping myself in the dark. That’s not to say that I don’t do my research before attending a production, but I tend to restrict my amount of knowledge pertaining to the play. Reading other reviews only clouds my own judgment and I like to enter the theatre with an open mind. I have to say, Game was not what I was expecting at all.

             Encased in their glass “cage,” Carly and Ashley became subhuman, as if I were watching animals in a zoo. As they engaged in mundane tasks like putting away groceries or more intimate exchanges such as arguments, I felt overwhelmingly uncomfortable. Most unnerving of all to witness was perhaps the sex, because I was invading this couple’s privacy, along with all of the other wide-eyed peeping Toms surrounding me. To put it bluntly, we all watched their child’s moment of conception.

             You’re probably wondering what’s the catch. Well, whenever things seem too good to be true, they probably are. Carly and Ashley were afforded their dream house in a housing crisis under one condition: they had to agree to be “game.” Paying customers would take shots at them with tranquilizer darts as they pleased, but the couple would never be forewarned as to when the shots would come. When their son was born, he was placed on the market and he dropped to the floor just like his parents, but with even more ease.

The voyeur's view, photo courtesy of Keith Pattison

             In my zone, a group of girls stumbled in during drunken mid-birthday celebrations. They thought it would be fun to take aim at Carly over and over again. Their complete lack of empathy was jarring, but it made me think of something. When humans hunt animal “game,” this same callousness and complete disregard for life is also present. Only when confronted with the reality of the human equivalent do we see the barbarity of something like trophy hunting.

             When we watch animals having sex, fighting, or with their young, we find it amusing. Yet, people have also become “game,” open to public consumption. Take the example of television series Big Brother, where people tune in to watch the lives of others in an enclosed house. I’ve never been able to grasp why this constitutes entertainment, but then we all have our own ideas of fun.

             I began to feel a bit claustrophobic, a bit panicked, as Game neared its impactful end. That was the point when conscience and ethics tag teamed and made their appearance in the play. Carly and Ashley decided that they needed to leave the “dream” behind, because the risk was becoming greater than the reward. David (Kevin Harvey), the man responsible for manning the station with the tranquilizer gun, entered the house for the first time. Carly and Ashley’s son didn’t want to leave and he was quivering underneath a cardboard box.

Photo courtesy of Keith Pattison

             The little boy had become very fond of a solider game on a handheld electronic device, so David managed to coax him out by giving him instructions and addressing him as "Soldier." Haunting, ghostly images of real military soldiers were suddenly projected onto the walls of the house and the static in my headphones became too much to bear. As a military brat, I felt overcome with emotion. The play’s program featured an article with a newspaper headline reading: “More British soldiers commit suicide than die in battle, figures suggest.” When David was left alone, presumably a former solider himself, he turned the tranquilizer gun on himself as we watched him die. Game over.

             Most of us are familiar with the character Jigsaw from the Saw horror movie franchise. He is often quoted as chillingly asking his victims, “Would you like to play a game?” before they either die or manage to survive one of his sadistic tasks. That’s what life is all about: survival. Bartlett forces the issue out into the open with his thought-provoking play.

             The “game” is really referring to the game of life, which is also the name of a board game. Again, we can play pretend in a make-believe world for a while, imitating ourselves. The board game mimics real life, with options such as a career, college, marriage, and children. Let’s not forget one of my personal favorites either, The Sims. War-based video game Call of Duty is not in fact the real deal, the real battlefield. We don’t have multiple lives or do-overs in reality. If you can make it through each day, if you can learn how to play the real game of life, you’ll come out on top as a winner.

             Game finishes its run at the Almeida Theatre today, April 4^th. Book your last minute tickets here. 

Photo courtesy of Keith Pattison