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Review of Shakespeare's Richard III (directed by Ben Kidd for Love&Madness) at the Riverside Studios, London, 3 March 2010

Richard III at the Riverside Studios was one third of a season of plays produced under the umbrella title of Desire and Destruction, and although it might be argued that Richard’s desire leads to destruction, it was the element of destruction that was most keenly focused on in Ben Kidd’s production. Performed on a traverse stage, Kidd’s was a pared down production: a red carpet area marked out the main stage space, although the actors also observed from scaffolding positioned at either end. Most of the actors in the cast of eight played at least two characters, sometimes using a slight costume change, such as the donning of a jacket or removal of a tie, and changes in accent to differentiate between characters. However, although such changes were slight, there was little problem in recognizing characters perhaps a consequence of the sparse approach. Kidd’s was a fast production, coming in at a little over two and a half hours, and included a number of significant adaptations. Most obvious of these was the expanded role of Margaret: indeed, the audience was expecting the famous ‘‘Now is the winter’’ opening line, so it was a surprise that the first character onstage was Margaret, speaking about the Lancastrian losses. Such extratextual lines signalled that Richard III was built upon previous offstage events. Played by a man (Matthew Sim), Margaret functioned as a mixture of that original character and the Duchess of York (who was absent from this production). Margaret returned for her cursing scene and, in another extratextual addition, she appeared to Richard in a dream, tormenting him before leaving for France. Richard also spoke extratextual lines during this dream-scene from 3 Henry VI 5.6: words addressed in that play to King Henry were here addressed to his widow, sending her ‘‘down, down to hell’’ and thus painting the choric figure that Margaret performed in this play as, in some way, as demonic as Richard. Played by Carl Prekopp, Richard was a thin, pale, sickly looking man. His ‘‘deformity’’ (1.1.27) was played without prosthetics or humps: Prekopp moved around in a manner reminiscent of palsy, his left arm was constantly raised to his lapel and he dragged a rigid left leg. Despite this, he also displayed a great physicality, swinging on the scaffolding and leaping into the centre of the stage, his movements at such points blurring the line between his humanity and his animality. Although Prekopp’s performance (and Kidd’s production) bordered on a psychological study,