Thus, as Irving Wardle notes,
The first thing to be said of Mr Howard’s performance is that he does Richard out of the arias. “What shall the king do now?” is delivered in a terrified gabble. He really wants to know. It is the panic-stricken demand of an actor who has forgotten his lines. 76
Wardle notes that the emotional journey for John Suchet’s Bullingbrook moves from “an affable open-hearted invader” to “a coldly-masked opportunist” and, finally, “a haunted figure bent under the weight of a usurped kingdom.”
Barry Kyle (1986)
Barry Kyle’s production of
Richard II
opened with colorful medieval scenic splendor, announcing its distance from the harsh steel world of the history cycle, directed by Peter Hall and John Barton in 1963–64, and from the minimalist staging favored by Terry Hands (1975–80). As Margaret Shewring relates, “It was the stage picture for Barry Kyle’s production that attracted most column inches of critical attention.” 77 However, “This visual feast was not gratuitous. On the contrary, it was an essential image of the cultural richness of the Ricardian court.” 78 Other critics were less impressed:
Barry Kyle has adopted a pop-up picture book approach to this play and William Dudley’s set, steeped in the artificial world of “The Book of Hours,” is an enclosed garden surrounded by castellated walls and turrets against a brilliant, azure background with the passage of time marked by an astrological arch which spans the stage. It is an exquisite set which becomes increasingly irrelevant as the tragedy moves out of the claustrophobic luxuriance of Richard’s court to the reality of Bullingbrook’s camp, not to mention Pontefract Castle. At times it is seriously counter-productive: “Come down—down court, down King, / For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing” [3.3.183–4]. And sure enough, Richard goes spiralling downwards on a miniature turret, the very same turret that Bullingbrook leaps onto later—going up naturally. 79
Stanley Wells also found the set “less than wholly successful” where “Richard, facing the audience, addresses his abdication speeches toBullingbrook, who is seated above and behind him, through the back of his head,” but argued that the production represented “an honest and intelligent attempt to objectify the style of this highly formalized play.” 80
5. Barry Kyle production, 1986. The “colourful medieval scenic splendour” of the set proved problematic for some, where “Richard, facing the audience, addresses his abdication speeches to Bolingbroke, who is seated above and behind him, through the back of his head.”
The play started with Jeremy Irons’ Richard
first discovered resplendent in peacock blue and gold, spread-eagled on the ground, the leopard encaged in his kingdom that will become his tomb. He looks up wearily, as if to say: I
know
I’m not playing the kingship game with the degree of seriousness everybody else expects of me. 81
Without the context of a history cycle, the production can suggest an elegiac response to the ending of a medieval kingship. However, the “startlingly messianic” portrayal by Jeremy Irons of the tragic downfall of a divine king, a man “more or less crucified by his assailants,” is in fact “another aspect of the poseur.” 82 Richard plays his role ineffectually and dangerously, misjudging the political climate. Critics were impressed with the ceremonial joust scene, “a public ritual whose essential meaning is obvious to everyone present and the actors brilliantly convey the sense of unspoken but thoroughly understood accusations,” and Michael Kitchen’s “mesmerising performance” as Bullingbrook, “a formidable figure: an unpleasant, unglamorous and devious man but one who simply radiates competence, shrewdness, and a cynical likeability.” 83
Ron Daniels (1990)
While Jeremy Irons suggested the self-destructive path taken by the last
The first thing to be said of Mr Howard’s performance is that he does Richard out of the arias. “What shall the king do now?” is delivered in a terrified gabble. He really wants to know. It is the panic-stricken demand of an actor who has forgotten his lines. 76
Wardle notes that the emotional journey for John Suchet’s Bullingbrook moves from “an affable open-hearted invader” to “a coldly-masked opportunist” and, finally, “a haunted figure bent under the weight of a usurped kingdom.”
Barry Kyle (1986)
Barry Kyle’s production of
Richard II
opened with colorful medieval scenic splendor, announcing its distance from the harsh steel world of the history cycle, directed by Peter Hall and John Barton in 1963–64, and from the minimalist staging favored by Terry Hands (1975–80). As Margaret Shewring relates, “It was the stage picture for Barry Kyle’s production that attracted most column inches of critical attention.” 77 However, “This visual feast was not gratuitous. On the contrary, it was an essential image of the cultural richness of the Ricardian court.” 78 Other critics were less impressed:
Barry Kyle has adopted a pop-up picture book approach to this play and William Dudley’s set, steeped in the artificial world of “The Book of Hours,” is an enclosed garden surrounded by castellated walls and turrets against a brilliant, azure background with the passage of time marked by an astrological arch which spans the stage. It is an exquisite set which becomes increasingly irrelevant as the tragedy moves out of the claustrophobic luxuriance of Richard’s court to the reality of Bullingbrook’s camp, not to mention Pontefract Castle. At times it is seriously counter-productive: “Come down—down court, down King, / For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing” [3.3.183–4]. And sure enough, Richard goes spiralling downwards on a miniature turret, the very same turret that Bullingbrook leaps onto later—going up naturally. 79
Stanley Wells also found the set “less than wholly successful” where “Richard, facing the audience, addresses his abdication speeches toBullingbrook, who is seated above and behind him, through the back of his head,” but argued that the production represented “an honest and intelligent attempt to objectify the style of this highly formalized play.” 80
5. Barry Kyle production, 1986. The “colourful medieval scenic splendour” of the set proved problematic for some, where “Richard, facing the audience, addresses his abdication speeches to Bolingbroke, who is seated above and behind him, through the back of his head.”
The play started with Jeremy Irons’ Richard
first discovered resplendent in peacock blue and gold, spread-eagled on the ground, the leopard encaged in his kingdom that will become his tomb. He looks up wearily, as if to say: I
know
I’m not playing the kingship game with the degree of seriousness everybody else expects of me. 81
Without the context of a history cycle, the production can suggest an elegiac response to the ending of a medieval kingship. However, the “startlingly messianic” portrayal by Jeremy Irons of the tragic downfall of a divine king, a man “more or less crucified by his assailants,” is in fact “another aspect of the poseur.” 82 Richard plays his role ineffectually and dangerously, misjudging the political climate. Critics were impressed with the ceremonial joust scene, “a public ritual whose essential meaning is obvious to everyone present and the actors brilliantly convey the sense of unspoken but thoroughly understood accusations,” and Michael Kitchen’s “mesmerising performance” as Bullingbrook, “a formidable figure: an unpleasant, unglamorous and devious man but one who simply radiates competence, shrewdness, and a cynical likeability.” 83
Ron Daniels (1990)
While Jeremy Irons suggested the self-destructive path taken by the last
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