by Jonathan Bailey gives the best performance I have ever seen from Shakespeare’s faulty monarch, an irregular tyrant that would win once. This may sound like weak praise because the large London productions of the piece are rare. But the other two richards I remember are David Tennant and Fiona Shaw, so props for the star of Bridgerton and Wicked.
Bailey lives and humanized the king in a clean, clear, warlike staging of Nicholas Hytner, who feels right for our time. Overall, this is a profitable combination of casting, programming and cultural curation in order to follow the joyful Money spinner of the bridge, the boys and dolls of the bridge.
There the actors rubbed their shoulders with the audience. Here we make a horseshoe of spectators around an elongated stage that has come into the auditorium. At some point we will witness to a show process. Bailey swings in a simple crown into a tailor -made coat coat and sock -free feet in velvet ruins, which cancel him from Höflingen in suits or jeans. A Saturn beard gives its companion a mischievous frame.
In a short time, Richard hides his problematic cousin and potential rival Henry Bulllingbrook (striking newcomer Royce Pierreson) and confiscates Bullingbrooks of late father John von Gaunt’s estate to wage a foolish war in Ireland. Where he believes that his divine law justifies a Caprice, Bulllingbrook is more easily spoken and pragmatic if they were in favor of nobles.
But when he questioned Richard – in this case by forming a massive field gun on the balcony of the theater, on which Bailey is defined in a white layer – he becomes a traitor. Richard is now transformed into a kind of Christ figure by grief about the loss of his kingdom, a metamorphosis of Bailey reaches with great ability. As Hytner said, he speaks Shakespeare’s verse, as if he had been born.
The piece has some of the best poems from Shakespeare (including the speech “This England” by Gaunt, which by a second line -up in the performance in which I took part there are Echos from Hamlet in Richard’s reflective soliloquie about landing in Wales and König Lear in his character sheet. With Shakespeare’s other Tudor story: It is confusing to remember that he wrote it in an apparently random order over two decades.
Nevertheless, Richard II will never be a lack of public with its strong structure and strict double documents with two different royalty styles, unless it is from Star Casting. Hence Bailey. He orders the stage and even lets a small camp penetrate the character (Richard’s marriage to his Shopaholic woman can be a transaction system). He is not contrary to the crown, but in later speeches it reaches a painted size.
Hytner’s production with first -class character actors, including Michael Simkins as a persistent Duke of York and Christopher Osikanlu Colquhoun as Suave Duke of Northumberland. It also has a future star in Royce Pierreson. Bullingbrook is only his third professional stage. In the end, Bailey rightly called him on the stage to share his solo curtain call.
Bridge Theater until May 10; Bridgeetheatre.co.uk
