Summary 
Entertaining drama, elegantly directed and featuring a superb supporting cast. A prima donna pretty-boy Richard - in an affected portrayal like someone from Wilde - finds his heaven-ordained privileged life threatened by a blunt brute Bolingbroke. The King's descent to humanity is poetic and emotional.
Design
Directed by Martha Henry. Set by Astrid Janson. Costumes by Allan Wilbee. Lights by Louise Guinand. Sound by Todd Charlton. Fights by James Binkley.
Cast
Geordie Johnson (Richard II), Joseph Shaw (Gaunt), John Gilbert (York), John Dolan (Bolingbroke), Martin Albert (Aumerle), Brad Rudy (Mowbray), Stephen Russell (Salisbury), Jordan Pettle (Bushy), Steve Ross (Bagot), Donald Carrier (Green/Westminster), Robert King (Northumberland), Nicolas Van Burek (Hotspur), William Needles (Carlisle), Jonathan Goad (Scroope), Evan Buliung (Lord Marshall), Richard McMillian (Exton), Maggie Blake (Queen Isabel), Patricia Collins (Duchess of Gloucester), Joyce Campion (Duchess of York).
Analysis
Martha Henry's large-cast production of Richard II for the Stratford Festival of Canada emphasizes the tradition of pageantry within English kingship, beginning with a long formal procession of characters in a pair of single-file ranks marching solemnly to the stage amid monk-like chants and new age music samples. The characters almost ritualistically don their costumes, pulling tunics, robes and capes then belts over long-sleeved cotton, topping with the occasional cap. Richard himself wears an elaborately designed dark belt to secure a flowing ivory robe. Henry's staging - narrow scrims lit to appear like looming granite castle wall - is upon the bare-bones Tom Patterson Theatre, the threadbare but showy adornments of Richard II's domain within the sparse black-box theatre cleverly akin to Richard's arrogant divine-right-of-kings within an increasingly pragmatic 14th-century England.
Geordie Johnson's Richard II is tall, lean and handsome, a blond long-haired monarch with a smugly self-satisfied expression, a self-deluded pretty-boy whose conceits and exaggerated perceptions are as flimsy and gaudy as the window dressing around him. Johnson's aristocratic Richard is full of regal poses and elaborate gestures, appearing bored with his own unassailable position as he settles a golden crown carefully atop his wavy, swept-back hair and snuggles into his precious elevated throne like a child in a crib. The real world intrudes with the intense 1.3 verbal conflict between Mowbray and Bolingbroke threatening to escalate into violence. The opening interchange between Richard and John of Gaunt opens the production in amplified narration - assuring Johnson's Richard of "no inveterate malice" toward him - over the public address system, and Johnson's satisfied Richard then becomes coldly indifferent as he summons the two lords: "then call them to our presence." Richard behaves with imposed-upon disregard for the matters of court, then with sneering dismissal of the rivalry and emotional outburst, and finally with god-blessed vanity as he rises and bursts out shouting himself. Johnson's Richard nose-in-the-air finality after his outburst smacks of a King who fully expects everyone to instantly bow to his will and acquiesce immediately.
John Dolan as Bolingbroke presents a diametrical opposite to Johnson's classically handsome and pompously entitled Richard. Dolan's squat Bolingbroke is a balding and heavy-set bull of a man with thinning gray hair. An older man than Richard, he is plain-speaking and blunt in his approach, balling his fists in red-faced blustering like a down-to-earth man of the people whereas Johnson's upper-crust Richard simpers and strikes casually superior poses, at times effeminate and at times almost as if he is sitting for an official portrait. After finally freeing himself from the distasteful business, Johnson's Richard becomes a flamboyant Oscar Wilde-like playboy in a romantic comedy, sniffing and sniping at the help and flinging himself cross-legged into a lounge chair. The homoerotic 1.4 interaction with Bagot and Green takes place as if at a pre-orgy picnic, with Richard sprawled lasciviously atop one of his favorite boy toys who playfully paws his royal hair.
Henry's direction is tightly focused, driving the story with stylish ease, and the sparse staging is uniformly elegant. The supporting performances are generally quite good, with a slew of excellent performers in small roles, like Evan Buliung as a boomingly officious Lord Marshal, Donald Carrier as mincing Richard-favorite Green, Stephen Russell as the steadfastly loyal Salisbury, Jonathan Goad as the bad-news bearing Scroope, and fiery Nicolas Van Burek as the dangerous hothead Hotspur. Joyce Campion's Duchess of York is the most memorable, an angry old woman who imbues her bursts of anger with alternating twinges of grief and desperation.
Henry focuses the decline and deposing of Richard squarely on the shoulders of Johnson's performance, and Johnson delivers a memorably foppish but elegant young Richard, shocked to the core not just at being dethroned but at the concept of being dethroned. Johnson's Richard becomes embattled, mentally as well as physically, and Henry again reflects his beleaguered state of mind onstage, showing a court suddenly teeming with activity as servants scatter and scurry, while lords wring their hands or hover menacingly. Richard slowly realizes his humanity and first descends into more of a verbose self-pity than an intellectual self-realization, his eyes downcast, his voice low and cracking, his shoulders sagging. At the 5.1 separation ("eating the bitter bread of banishment") from a teenaged Queen Isabel - a child-like young woman with her hair severely back, wearing a plain dress, embodying in opposite her falling husband's fashion-sense and personality - Johnson's Richard begins 5.3 to feel true emotional pain for the first time in his life, and his descent into understanding is fully realized thanks to Henry's sensitive direction as well as Johnson's affected performance.