Richard III (Strawdog Theatre, 3829 N. Broadway, Chicago, through March 29). Nic Dimond’s lean, mean production of Richard III is anchored by a charismatic title role performance by Strawdog ensemble member John Henry Roberts and a soulful one by Jennifer Avery as Queen Elizabeth. The fine supporting cast barely fits all at once in Strawdog’s tiny performance space, but Joe Schermoly’s pared-down set makes the most of the claustrophobia. All in all, electrifying (OGIC)
From the Wall Street Journal’s Terry Teachout’s arts journal weblog About Last Night. Reviewed by their “Our Girl in Chicago”)
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What attracts you to this play? What are some questions that it poses
that still resonate today?
I’m a reluctant Shakespeare fan. Yes, these plays contain the greatest “action poetry” in the English language, but somehow most of the time when I’m watching them I feel like there’s an important something getting lost in the translation. When I do encounter one of his stories that speaks to me, it’s generally because there are strong elements that echo aspects of my own life, and those elements shine through the translation issues that I generally have. In Richard III (amidst all of the baffling political intrigues that are so prohibitively present in all of his histories) I could plainly see a gut wrenching story about a closely knit family. Granted, this family is royalty and is deeply steeped in traditions of honor and violence and intrigue and my family runs a furniture store on the south side, but when you put aside the political history lesson to think about the basic weapons of family warfare and how they are employed in even the most humble of family businesses, this play becomes much more human. With this cut of the script, it’s our goal to transform a museum quality history into a relatable tragedy about family dynasties.
Another reason that this play is so attractive to me is that I’m personally compelled by studies of power - where it comes from and how it moves. I’ll leave the lovely love stories to the more romantically minded directors around town, because I’m dedicated to thoughtful, aggressive explorations of the stories about control and cruelty. Honestly, one of the reasons I need to make theatre is because it provides me a place to safely explore the various bad behaviors that seem to be constantly simmering right beneath my surface – I’m fairly certain I’d have found a way to get myself incarcerated by now if it wasn’t for that outlet, and as Richard is one of Shakespeare’s most cherished villains, this particular journey provides some pretty good exercise for those particular demons.
How is the production’s approach to the material unique?
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.
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.
Do you think Richard is a hero or a villain? Why?
Oh, I don’t think that I believe in heroes and villains – I believe that people behave in different ways at different times, mostly due to their circumstances and their motivations. I should mention that I have never read the comments about Richard’s deformity as actual physical defects – it’s always felt psychological, just the inside manifesting itself on the outside. Sure, I can wrap my head around him being the runt of the litter (How would you like to grow up in the shadow of Edward the mighty warrior-king and ladies man? No pressure…) but manifesting him as a hunchback seems to cheapen the whole story in some way. Put yourself in his shoes. Coming back from a horrifying war having earned a reputation for savage effectiveness, how does an emotional cripple flip the war switch off? I’m not saying it’s excusable, I’m saying it’s understandable.
Yet while Richard is trying to have so much fun carving his way to the crown and then suffering the inevitable tragic fall and having a breakdown on the eve of battle, all of his victims find the strength to walk tall into his betrayals. I believe that true character is revealed by how gracefully one moves through tragedy, and that this noble strength must count for a lot. While I do love me some bad behavior, like most people I’m also on the search for redemption. My belief in the existence of that kind of strength in the face of powerful evil helps me get out of bed in the morning.
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from http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon39.html
Richard III, the eleventh child of Richard, Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, was born in 1452. He was created third Duke of Gloucester at the coronation of his brother, Edward IV. Richard had three children: one each of an illegitimate son and daughter, and one son by his first wife, Anne Neville, widow of Henry IV’s son Edward.
Richard’s reign gained an importance out of proportion to its length. He was the last of the Plantagenet dynasty, which had ruled England since 1154; he was the last English king to die on the battlefield; his death in 1485 is generally accepted between the medieval and modern ages in England; and he is credited with the responsibility for several murders: Henry VI , Henry’s son Edward, his brother Clarence, and his nephews Edward and Richard.
Richard’s power was immense, and upon the death of Edward IV , he positioned himself to seize the throne from the young Edward V . He feared a continuance of internal feuding should Edward V, under the influence of his mother’s Woodville relatives, remain on the throne (most of this feared conflict would have undoubtedly come from Richard). The old nobility, also fearful of a strengthened Woodville clan, assembled and declared the succession of Edward V as illegal, due to weak evidence suggesting that Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous, thereby rendering his sons illegitimate and ineligible as heirs to the crown. Edward V and his younger brother, Richard of York, were imprisoned in the Tower of London, never to again emerge alive. Richard of Gloucester was crowned Richard III on July 6, 1483.
Four months into his reign he crushed a rebellion led by his former assistant Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who sought the installation of Henry Tudor , a diluted Lancaster, to the throne. The rebellion was crushed, but Tudor gathered troops and attacked Richard’s forces on August 22, 1485, at the battle of Bosworth Field. The last major battle of the Wars of the Roses, Bosworth Field became the death place of Richard III. Historians have been noticeably unkind to Richard, based on purely circumstantial evidence; Shakespeare portrays him as a complete monster in his play, Richard III. One thing is for certain, however: Richard’s defeat and the cessation of the Wars of the Roses allowed the stability England required to heal, consolidate, and push into the modern era.
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I recently had a chance to sit down with Matt and Jimmy from the alternative comedy duo Plecostomus. They will be playing a late night show in November at the Strawdog Theatre, so we decided to pay top dollar to have them flown out here from Omaha for an exclusive interview. And by “top dollar”, I mean they got nothing, and by “flown them out here” I mean I e-mailed them a one sided conversation and they filled in the blanks….Here goes.
Sean: Hey guys…Who and what the hell is Plecostomus, and what is their deal?
Matt: Plecostomus is a two man - avant garde - alternative rock-comedy band. Most of our music is fueled by our deep loathing of the current status of modern music. We decided that instead of conforming to what people consider “hot” these days, we would try to do something completely off the wall and have a blast doing it!
Sean: I heard you guys are from Omaha. Omaha - really? Did you guys have anything to do with that Counting Crows song named after the famous small town in Iowa? Or is that a different Omaha?
Jimmy: Counting Crows? Omaha? Famous? Iowa? Small town? Different?
Matt: I think what Jimmy is trying to say is, yes. We had everything to do with the Counting Crows.
Sean: What is your sound like, and what are your influences as a band? Wait - you guys are a band, right?
Jimmy: I know it may sound like typical “band speak”, but our main influence is that Counting Crows song named after the famous small town in Nebraska.
Matt: Actually, our influences are pretty varied and not strictly musical in nature. Jimmy and I were very influenced by Monty Python, They Might Be Giants, The Kids in The Hall, Back to the Future, Crown Royal, Hard-core Pornography, and of course, the aforementioned Gods of modern music… Counting Crows.
Sean: Describe what we might expect from your debut show in the windy city.
Jimmy: Wind.
Matt: Festive and playful rock music with a large dose of social satire and comedy for good measure… and maybe an indecent exposure citation or two.
Sean: That’s so awesome…Any reviews or crazy fan stories you’d like to share?
Matt: We have some incredibly insane fans. I suppose we’re like Jesus in that regard, but our legal team has advised us to keep our mouths shut regarding any specific fan encounters.
Jimmy: I remember we once played a show at a venue called Anarchy Comics. It was this small comic book shop in downtown Omaha, and we always seemed to have the best shows there. There had been a sewer back-up a few weeks prior to one particular show, and the “stage area” we were playing on had not been cleaned very well so there was all of this dry, crusty… let’s just say that there were gross things on the floor. I didn’t realize this during our set and decided to drop down onto the floor and roll all over the place during an emotional song. After our set, I was all itchy and smelled like crap. We were talking to fans and signing merchandise when I mentioned how gross I felt and one of our fans decided to lick my arm. I don’t think she realized exactly how disgusting my arm was, but she didn’t seem to mind much. That was kinda strange.
Sean: There is a song on your latest record Society In General, called “Fat America”. I haven’t heard it myself, but I’ve been told that it is full of rich symbolism and social messages. Tell me a little bit about that one, and how you came up with it.
Jimmy: Well, the song itself can be taken a few different ways: Most of our younger fans take it at face value as a song about fat people and how lazy they are. Our more pretentious “indie” fans tend to believe it’s a metaphor for over indulgence and the high cost of capitalism without restraint in society. For me, it was partly inspired by a trip I took to Japan. I was out there for a while, and when I came back to the midwest and saw how out of shape everyone is, and how outrageously sized the meal portions are, I was shocked! That’s when
Matt and I decided it was time for some tough love…
Matt: We were actually pretty surprised at the success of that song. For a while it was the number 1 song on college radio in Omaha. It was nice to hear us chewing out the morbidly obese on the air waves.
Sean: Why Strawdog? Why now?
Jimmy: Because we needed something to do, and we heard that if you play a gig here the drinks are free.
Matt: We also heard that if you play a show here before the first full moon in November, your genitals increase in size three-fold!
Sean: Are you guys seriously a band?
Jimmy: Did Neil Armstrong seriously walk on the moon?
Matt: That information is proprietary.
Sean: What songs of yours might we have heard?
Jimmy: Well, we wrote most of Dylan’s catalog, but that was all under the table.
Matt: That’s true, but in addition, you may have heard our song “Conor” on the radio. We’ve also had some success with our love ballad “The Sun”, but it is a bit too saccharine for the radio, so you might need to check it out on our MySpace account, or on Project Playlist.
Sean: The ladies must go nuts for you guys - can you confirm or deny this?
Jimmy: In my personal experience… ladies are always nuts!
Matt: What Jimmy means is that his ladies always possess nuts.
Sean: Rumor has it that all the proceeds from this show will go to starving, overweight orphans back in Nebraska. Is this for serious?
Matt: You speak the truth, Sean. Both Jimmy and I are orphans and we are both very hungry at the moment.
Sean: I’m lead to believe that kids and old people love your sound. What do you have to say about that?
Matt: Kids like the insane lyrics and playful stage antics. Old People like the fact that we sometimes play the accordion and tuba in our songs - it reminds them of a time when they didn’t poop themselves.
Jimmy: The older gentlemen also like the fact that I give out free sponge baths after our shows. I don’t think they realize that the pleasure is all mine.
Sean: Is there any way for us to get a taste of your music, and where can we find it?
Matt: You listen to some of our music online at our website: www.plecostomusic.com. Or, if you prefer drama, we have a MySpace site: www.myspace.com/plecostomus. We also have albums for sale on our website, I-Tunes, or for free on internet torrents.
Sean: Anything else you guys would like to share about yourselves, or the so called “band”?
Jimmy: I suffer from a horrible Oedipus complex and Matt has a crippling addiction to frisbee golf. If anyone out there knows of a place where we can find counseling for these concerns, please let us know.
Sean: Well thanks guys for “flying” in for this interview. I’m sure the fans will appreciate it. We’ll see you in a couple weeks. November 2nd, 11 pm at Strawdog, correct?
Jimmy: I hope so! That’s when we reserved the private jet and escorts!
Sean: That sounds really great. Take it easy, and be careful on your greyhound trip back to the shinny pineapple-Omaha.
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Time Out editor Christopher Piatt writes up our 20th Season! Slowly, but surly…nice pun. (photo of our opening production of Aristocrats by our very own Don Cardiff…the photo, not the play…that’s by Brian Friel directed by Rick Snyder)
Read it the Time Out feature here.
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For movies related to the background/themes of Aristocrats, Strawblog recommends:
Bloody Sunday (docu-drama-like tense retelling of the Battle of the Bogside, directed by The Bourne Supremecy/Ultimatum’s Paul Greengrass)
Philadelphia, Here I Come (a young man in small town Ireland in the 1970’s deciding to leave his homeland in order to make a living; based on the Friel stageplay)
The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya (Chekhov’s aristocratic family-ensemble stories about loss and class identity)
Do you have a movie to recommend?
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Peter Sellers does Richard III … with chickens…
