The Conversation: Richard III FAQ

The Quick FAQ on WSF’s production of Richard III

The following questions have been asked of Heather Parish, the show’s director, multiple times during the summer over drinks, during dinners, at meetings and mixers around town. We have constructed them in the form of a conversation:

Which one is Richard III?

HP: He’s the one Ian McKellan played in that movie adaptation from around 10 years ago—the Fascist England adaptation. He’s also the one they thought killed the little kids in the Tower of London. Technically, Richard III was a ruthless and shrewd man who schemed his way to the throne of England only to lose it a short time later.

So, it’s a history play then?

HP: Not strictly. Shakespeare took many, many liberties with history when creating this story.

How much of it is true?

HP: We’re treating it all as if it were fiction. While a few plot points bear some relation to actual history, the play Shakespeare wrote in terms of character, timeline and motivation is largely fiction.

We’re more interested in the themes and questions Shakespeare’s play asks than in portraying the actual history of Richard’s reign in England. That’s an entirely different play.

So, what questions are you asking?

HP: The same questions Shakespeare always asks: What does it mean to be human? How should we act? What should we do?

. . . Seriously, what questions. . . ?

HP: *sigh.. . * Questions of power and seduction, fear and action, loss and gain. . . There are many other questions that come out of how we are telling the story and what the audience brings to the table. We try not to answer the questions. . . we feel that the asking of the questions is important so that the audience can live the human experience of the play vicariously and try to answer the questions for themselves.

What’s your concept? What time period are you setting it in?

HP: I don’t usually deal in straight concepts. I usually have an approach at the beginning of rehearsal and the concepts come out of working with the actors and what they bring to the table. For the visual context, the aesthetic is Elizabethan turned a bit on its side.

So, it’s Elizabethan. . . isn’t that about 100 years after the reign of Richard III?

HP: Elizabethan costuming and staging is the aesthetic—the world of the play we’re producing in the now. But again, we’re treating the play as fiction—a story of what havoc one man can bring upon a society. That idea is universal and can be played in a number of different time periods, costumes, and settings.

And you have lots of women in men’s roles. Are they playing men?

HP: No, they are playing characters. Unless a character calls for a specific gender relationship to another character—wife/husband, mother/father, sister/brother, etc.—I will cast either men or women into the role and let the actor decide how and when to use their gender point of view or sexuality to further the story and flesh out the world of the play. I cast based on the ability of the actor to tell the story effectively and try to see a variety of strengths and abilities in various people to create interesting characters. It makes for bolder choices in storytelling and can really turn a show on its ear.

So, Buckingham’s a woman?

HP: *sigh*. . . . yes, the character of Buckingham wears a skirt and brings all of those societal assumptions toward a person with no spouse or children to speak of.

So, what are you trying to say by that?

HP: As a person who wears skirts and also has no spouse or children to speak of, no comment. I’d rather the audience ask what they themselves read into it.

And, how’s the show coming along?

HP: Quite well, if I do say so. But we won’t truly know anything about the show until the final character enters the scene: the audience.