Director- Nic Dimond
DIRECTOR'S NOTES:
I’m a reluctant Shakespeare fan. Sure, these plays contain some of the greatest active poetry ever written in the English language, but there’s something that generally gets lost in the translation. Instead of treating these plays like museum pieces, we approach them as vital, relevant stories – stories that everyone can relate to today.
I’m particularly compelled by his stories that center around power. We will leave the lovely love stories to the more romantically minded companies, because we’ve cornered the market on the stories about control. Listen, one of the big reasons that I can’t stop doing theatre is because it gives me a place to safely explore the bad behaviors that are constantly simmering right below my surface – I’m certain that I would be incarcerated by now if I didn’t have this outlet, and these power plays provide such a fertile playground. And it gives us a chance to involve ourselves in contemporary political discussions – power and corruption are timeless, y’all – without having to get out a soapbox and try to win people over to a specific agenda.
When we cut, we don’t cut simply for time – we cut for story. In Shakespeare’s day, there was an expectation of multiple storylines and 5 hour productions. These days, we find it more effective to pick the storyline that turns us on the most, and highlight that in it’s entirety – for instance, we entirely cut Norfolk, Oxford and Hastings so we can present the “Now comes the winter” and the Richard/Anne scenes in their entirety. It’s not a nickel and dime approach – its more slash and burn. In the past, we’ve imagined it as microsurgery with a chainsaw, and we’re generally pleased with the results. By coming up with the right mix of irreverence for the Shakespearean mythology and respect for the actual work, and by applying our patented nerd/thug approach, we know we can tell this story in an entirely fresh and original way.
Richard is constantly unapologetically dissembling – there are suggestions that he’s actually quite proud of it. But where does that come from? When reading this, I’ve never imagined Richard as actually crippled in any obvious physical way – it’s always felt more psychological. And the tone of his soliloquies to the audience almost feel like he’s selling how cool it all is just a little too hard, as if he might be trying to convince himself as well. He talks about his lack of conscience too much to not actually have one.
As for production concept, we try to make it interesting and sexy, without relying on too much cleverness. I believe that for 21st century theatre audiences that come to Strawdog, period Elizabethan costumes would be distracting from the story that we are trying to present. We look at Shakespeare shows as an opportunity to really create our very own worlds from scratch, but we also want to work with some familiar forms to help people relax into the experience. This leaves us room to build up an idea by pulling together whatever various Richard III-related inspirations from all over the place – movies, music, similar historical incidents. For this one thoughts of medieval castles intersect with thoughts of high-end board rooms intersect with thoughts of private prep school politics and thoughts of Stalinistic tactics. Glamorous nightclubs. Chainmail. There might be some Iron Curtain in there as well. So, for the set I’m imagining stainless steel and rough-hewn blocks of granite. For costumes, I’m imagining contemporary lines with period fabrics. For sound, I’m imagining NIN meets a Mozart string concerto.
STRAWDOG COMPANY GOALS FOR OUR PRODUCTION OF RICHARD III
1. Theme/Strawdog Entry Point: “Power is primarily preoccupied with sustaining itself, and bloodlines can be cut.” In this production we will be examining the various weapons of family warfare, and how their use contributes to Richard’s obsessions and gradual psychological collapse. Cool quote about life in a royal family at this time: “The frailty of your reputation’s worth – tomorrow a whisper may destroy you.”
2. The acting challenges seem to center around finding the sweet spot between mastering and employing the Folio technique while at the same time basing our scenework on authentic emotional presence and fully developed relationships. We will bring these characters to life without commenting on their decisions – life is complicated and the world is not as simple as wholly glorious heroes and entirely evil villains, and we will respect that fact.
3. A la Sci Fi, we want to create an alternate history, and immerse our audience in it. We will build a whole new anachronistic world based on forms and shapes and textures that our audience will be familiar with.
4. Our Presentation Approach (Cutting Process + Production Concept + Performance Approach) makes Shakespearean stories accessible in a contemporary way. By coming up with the right mix of irreverence for the Shakespearean mythology and respect for the actual work, and by applying our patented non-partisan approach, we know we can present this as a story that anyone today can relate to. Also, our production compresses the timeline of the story to help heighten the stakes.
5. We are very close, but how intimate are we? We believe that our ensemble process results in a more powerful experience for the audience – the deeper we are able to get with each other, the deeper we are able to get into our audience. This strength of ours is especially useful while attacking a play about royal dynasties, because everyone is related AND involved in the family business of running the country, by any means necessary. We will be especially mindful to include our guest artists in our intimate process, by going out of our way to ask them questions that pull them out of the standard “hired gun” mentality.
6. Traps to avoid:
Unsympathetic protagonist
Structure – once he gets crown, keep the action/stakes up
Language trapping actors in unsustainable, uninteresting places and physical overcompensation
7. The most interesting questions
Why does everyone so desperately want to believe Richard?
Is it reasonable for civilians to assume that soldiers can flip the switch into non-war-waging mode?
What will people allow when they are tired of war?
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