Stratford Festival production of Richard II is bold and brash, but not-quite-fully realized
The theme of this year’s Stratford Festival season is Duty vs. Desire, and so far no production has illustrated that more effectively than Jillian Keiley’s bold, brash, yet not-quite-fully realizedIn Keiley’s concept, the flamboyantly out Plantagenet ruler has slacked off on his royal duties and succumbed to his desires.
Richard, believing in the divine right of kings, feels invincible. Coddled and pampered all his life – he was crowned at 10, remember – he’s so out of touch with the people that he doesn’t understand that by taxing and plundering the wealth of England’s nobles to amass his army he’s causing unrest, paving the way for Bolingbroke’s victory.
Fraser has also cut one of the play’s most familiar monologues, the one in which Richard’s uncle – and Bolingbroke’s father – John of Gaunt decries the leasing out of England with his “This sceptred isle” speech. As if to compensate for that, Keiley stages Gaunt’s death scene with stark, horrific power.
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