Summary 
Black box staging with a cunning and charismatic Richard portrayed as a master politician rather than as a crazed or evil force. Dark and intimate production weakened somewhat by uneven supporting performances and especially by presentation of Richmond as undeserving and lacking heroism or honor. Solid overall, especially in the lead performance, despite the surprisingly bleak conclusion.
Design
Directed by John Wood. Designed by Patrick Clark. Lights by John Munro. Original music by Alan Laing. Sound by Evan Turner.
Cast
Joyce Campion (Duchess), James Blendick (Edward IV), David Keeley (George/ Richmond), Stephen Ouimette (Richard), Diane D'Aquila (Elizabeth), Barbara Bryne (Margaret), Lucy Peacock (Anne), Keith Dinicol (Rivers/Tyrrel/Blunt), Stephen Russell (Hastings), Peter Donaldson (Buckingham), John Gilbert (Stanley).
Analysis
The Stratford Festival presents Richard III on the long, narrow stage of the Tom Patterson Theatre. The thrust stage remains bare except for red velvet-cushioned benches. Hanging upstage are a series of elevated portraits of English kings: Henry V and Henry VI each flank Edward. The production begins with the entire cast crowded onstage to pay brief homage to the past and for-the-moment kings.
The expansive stage within a relatively small (486-seat) black-box space lends a participatory sense of intimacy to the play's political machinations and personal maneuvering. When Stephen Ouimette as Richard first enters - "now is the winter of our discontent" - he sidles alongside the elevated stage at the level of the audience, and he addresses them in his soliloquy. He walks the length of the theatre before ascending to the stage, much as he plots and backstabs before he ascends the throne.
Ouimette plays the physical Richard well, wearing long, straight hair while clad in black leather and knee boots. One boot features an extended heel to produce the famous limp, and Ouimette has the typical hunchback and a withered left arm pinned to his coat. Though somewhat lacking the physical brutishness to be a believably nightmarish bully, Ouimette still displays the charisma of a potent wooer, politician and deceiver, and he portrays well the seething venom of the Duke. Ouimette's Richard plays as manic rather than maniacal and more cunning than crazed. He constantly prowls the stage like a restless cat, slapping the throne, mimicking the politic Rivers, or making Dorset sit by fixing a withering glare upon him.
Ouimette upstages the cursing Margaret during the lengthy 1.3 scene, and he creates an insight into the Duke's lack of conscience. Ouimette's Richard, unlike other characters who are transfixed by Margaret's wrath, strolls the stage freely, almost care-free in manner. At one point he leaves the stage and checks the exit doors as if he has better things to do with his time. Later, as everyone exits, he follows but stops and spins to address the audience - "I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl" - once he is alone.
As usual, Richard III's first half leans heavily on the defining scenes of the wooing of Lady Anne and the dispatching of Lord Hastings. The former scene begins with a crucifix-laden scaffolding wheeled upstage as Anne and the coffin-bearers approach. Ouimette's Richard lies concealed, watching, upon the scaffold. At one point during the "wooing," Anne opens the coffin to reveal a profusion of Lancastrian red rose petals, and she hurls a handful at Richard with hateful disdain. As Richard begins to succeed in his seduction, he slams the coffin lid to punctuate a remark, and once Anne slinks offstage in defeat, he grabs fistfuls of rose petals in conquering glee.
The political victory over Hastings also is symbolically depicted, this time with the Bishop of Ely's red strawberries. Again signifying the Yorkist Richard's mastery over the waning Lancasters, the victorious Duke plucks red strawberries from a bowl and bites at them thoughtfully. When Hasting's head is brought to him - within a graphically bloody basket - Ouimette drops a single half-eaten strawberry into the satchel. Then, in typically grandiose overkill, the soon-to-be-King spins and dumps the remainder of the bowl into the soiled basket, and the lights black out to signal interval.
The second act begins with the newly crowned Richard luxuriating upon a mammoth, fur-fringed, royal red robe. At the opposite end of the set, Richard's portrait has replaced the painting of the deceased Edward. When the new King calls for Buckingham to approach, the Duke becomes distraught because he cannot get close to Richard as he has obviously been instructed never to tread on or touch the royal robe. Richard must gather the expansive robe within his own hands to allow Buckingham proximity to his person.
The less-successful 4.4 wooing of the "poor-painted queen" Elizabeth is staged with flourishes from Ouimette. He steps upon Elizabeth's train to keep her from leaving the room, and after he kisses her, he roughly throws her to the ground in distaste and apparent awareness of his defeat.
Uneven effectiveness in the casting of the four female roles slightly weakens the production, which relies upon the charismatic energy Ouimette establishes. Some of the characterizations are subtle and effective, but others rely too much on stagy bombast. Anne is portrayed with a trembling grief that reveals the character's weakness. The stronger Elizabeth is played with shrill histrionics, although the sheer volume of her choler shows the weakening of Richard's domination. Similarly, while the stately Duchess of York is played subtly with worried speech and desperate wringing of hands, the cursing Margaret is portrayed very broadly. She walks in witchcraft-like circles and speaks in a rapid, highly pitched clip that would be difficult for anyone to take seriously.
In other supporting roles, Edward is elderly and frail rather than dissipated and syphilitic, as in the text. For those unfamiliar with the play or with the history, the sympathetic King lends even more of a monsterish element to his usurping brother, Richard. Edward's speech comes haltingly, and the King can barely stand: when he first appears in his chamber of dappled light, he must be wheeled onstage upon a gurney.
The other York brother, George, is played as innocent and somewhat daft by an actor who doubles as the triumphant Earl of Richmond. As George, he is dispatched offstage by Richard's murderers, who remove him from a top-lit four-square of bleak lighting. As Richmond, he is tall, blond and classically handsome, the physical and moral antithesis of Ouimette's Richard III.
Director John Wood begins the 5.3 ghost scene with two large scrims unfurling upstage. Amid a swirl of fog and back-lit in red, a wheeled cage emerges from the gloom and creaks toward the sleeping Richard. The cage carries a slew of burning red candles, and the ghosts of Richard's victims emerge from inside, led by Elizabeth, who conducts the curses of, "despair and die." The blessing of Richmond is edited from the scene, the focus tight on the cursing of Richard.
When Ouimette delivers Richard's subsequent battle cry, he leaps atop a wheeled cart. Another cart emerges opposite, with Richmond on top, and the two men do not simply address their soldiers, they speak to all of England. In an effective and rather ingenious choice, Wood intercuts the two speeches, neatly juxtaposing the two contenders for the throne.
Wood begins the final 5.4 battle sequence in a blackout with a barrage of sound effects that range from the metallic clash of armor and steel to the whinny of horses and the shouts of soldiers. Then, in sudden quiet, only the whisper of rainfall can be heard, accompanied by the occasional cry of the wounded and a knell of church-bells. When the lights come up, wounded bodies are strewn across the stage, and the two scaffolds have been joined downstage by a large, unifying crucifix.
In contrast to his decision to portray the textually lascivious Edward as a helpless victim, Wood chooses to eliminate the more typical deification of Richmond. The supposed hero and savior has his men brutally slay the helpless wounded and then pretend to be injured in order to ambush Richard. When a staggering Ouimette appears - "my kingdom for a horse" - they beset him and would kill him except for Richmond's call for one-on-one combat. After Richard clearly outduels him, Richmond's men intervene. Five men spin Richard upside down and hold him spread-eagled as Richmond stabs him with a sword. To enhance the brutality of the action, Richmond employs a trick sword that appears to slide into Ouimette's belly, and stage blood flows down the upended King's white shirt.
Wood's unsettling emphasis upon the supposedly virtuous Richmond's brutish nature and lack of honor undermines the sense of victory that should come with the death of Richard. The production's final images disturb. Richmond delivers an evidently hollow invocation of God and "smooth-faced peace" as the battlefield dead slowly rise, including Richard. The smothered Princes then emerge to take the defeated Richard by the hand and lead him upstage. As the crucifix-connected scaffolds split at the cross to allow Richard and the Princes to disappear hand-in-hand into the smoke, one notices a portrait of Richmond as Henry VII has replaced the one of Richard III.
With Ouimette's very good lead performance at its center, this production suffers from the decision to diminish and nearly demonize Richmond. Rather than culminate with the ultimate defeat of "God's enemy" - Richard III - the play distends with the worrisome nobility of the new monarch, and focus is lost on the sly cunning that Ouimette so gamely presents. Nevertheless, Wood's elegant production, replete with evocative incidental choral music, requiems and sound effects, works quite well and entertains when clearly focused on the delicious evil of Richard III.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.16, No.1, Winter 1998.