The Pearl Theatre Does Richard II Proud
An Apt Play for Our Times
By: Susan Hall - Dec 19, 2011
Richard II
By William Shakespeare
The Pearl Theatre
All over the country, in city centers and nook and crannies, live theater is thriving. Expressing a mission, providing a promised target for people looking for an exciting evening out, is essential for small theatre companies.
The Pearl Theatre Company in New York is just such a venue. Committed to a troop of resident actors and the production of the classics of world theatre, they focus on illuminating the human condition. For over 25 years Pearl has mounted first rate theatre.
This fall they put on Richard II in an engaging production. The play written centuries ago is about corruption, ambition and greed stalking a nation. The condition was not born in the USA, although it currently feels as though it were.
That less can be more is so often demonstrated in productions where limited financial resources are available, and a talented production team puts up sets with scant constructions and great talent applied to lighting and scenic design. Stephen Petrilli and Henry Feiner have put together a wonder. Stained glass windows, the symbols of power, and dramatic textures cast on the walls and floor by the clever use of lights are exciting and apt. Director J. R. Sullivan kept us on the edge of our seats, even laughing in relief when the appropriate occasion arises.
The plot is clouded by our lack of knowledge about the offstage murder victim, the Duke of Gloucester and the fights over power that ensue. Yet Sullivan makes where we are at any given moment clear in this staging. The performances make the subplots clear: the feud between Bolingbroke and Mowbry, who Chris Mixon carved with touching power; the complex loyalties of fathers like Gaunt drawn by Dan Kremer and Edmund, Duke of York, by Bill Christ. Actor Drew Lewis stepped in for this performance and was compelling.
Sean McNall gave us an unusually innocent Richard, befuddled by power and then, without a fight, acceding to his cousin, Bolingbroke. Played brilliantly by Grant Goodman, Bolingbroke’s language takes us right to the present and answers a question Ralph Fiennes raises in his film Coriolanus. How do you bring Shakespeare’s now question right into the now. The basis of this has to be in the tone and shape of the language. If actors who inhabit these roles are processing the thoughts of their characters in the same moment that they are delivered, we as audience are right with them.
Goodman’s performance is good preparation for the upcoming BBC film of Richard II, in which Rory Kinnear plays Bolingbroke. Kinnear was a brilliant Hamlet, handpicked by Nicholas Hytner, who waited for years to find just the right modern actor for the role. Goodman too is one of those just right modern actors.
The entire cast gives hearty and poignant performances. Of particular note is Jolly Abraham in role and sex switching performances as both the Queen and Harry Percy. Robin Leslie Brown, an original member of the troop, moves and arrests with her riveting performance in dual roles as the long-suffering Duchess of Gloucester, and particularly as Green. Carol Schultz as the Duchess of York gives us a moving mother’s defense of her son, no matter what bad things he did. The women's roles are fulfilled beautifully.
The Pearl production asks: If you tear down a world, what do you build? If the thing you were born to be is ripped away, what do you become? If madness is rampant in our land right now, and it would be hard to call entertaining Gingrich and Cain as presidential candidates anything other than mad, we may live in times very much like those that surrounded the deposition of Richard and the assumption of Bolingbroke to King Henry.
Richard II continues until December 24, well worth your time if you want stimulating respite from the numbing demands of shopping.
The Pearl season continues with eagerly anticipated productions of The Philanderer and Moon for the Misbegotten.