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Purple-Robed Kevin Spacey Struggles as Richard II at Old Vic
October 5, 2005 20:15
A combination of weak choices of material and/or direction dogged Kevin Spacey's disappointing first season as artistic director of London's venerable Old Vic Theatre. Spacey kicks off his second season with a bolder choice, playing the title role in Shakespeare's "Richard II."
The secret of playing a king is ensuring that everyone else plays it for you. To play someone of the highest rank depends upon everyone else treating you with the utmost deference, so hiring Trevor Nunn, former Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre artistic director, to stage the piece was a smart move.
Nunn puts his cards on the table right from the start. As Handel's "Zadok the Priest" -- the uplifting anthem used at British coronations since that of George II and Queen Caroline in 1727 -- plays loudly, Spacey is calmly dressed in the purple robes of state. His dressers, too, are wearing traditional robes but they're on top of expensively cut, modern gray suits. The scene is simultaneously replayed on giant video screens mounted on either side of the proscenium arch.
There is textual justification for this approach. For example, before sending the king's favorites, Bushey and Greene, to their deaths, Bolingbroke, who will usurp the throne, announces that he will unfold the causes of their wrongdoings "here in the view of men." Nunn uses this as a cue for a modern, media-savvy Bolingbroke (coldly zealous Ben Miles) to play the scene to a camera crew.
Chocolate Sofas
Hildegard Bechtler's design is considerably less full of tricks than this might suggest. She and lighting designer Peter Mumford create an impressive range of spaces with the simplest of means. Merely by flying in different walls and distinguishing them with contrasting light, they give us everything from a paneled House of Lords to chilly open-air spaces via an elegant home with chocolate-colored leather sofas against a smooth gray background.
Grayness is a clever tonal choice throughout the production, which underlines the colorless pragmatism of politicking. The play is a study in the perils of power and leadership, with Bolingbroke doing everything to appeal to rival dissatisfied factions so as to wrest the throne from the rightful monarch.
Since the monarchy was believed to be divinely appointed, any actor taking on the role needs to brim with confidence, a quality that Spacey specializes in. Unfortunately, he is a strikingly modern actor whose default mode is irony. He loves giving a line a fast throw-away spin, the equivalent of a cocked eyebrow or a wink to the audience. But Shakespeare's language doesn't use irony that way. Spacey wins laughs, though often at the text's expense.
Spacey's Accent
He's effortful when he should be effortless. Squashing his U.S. accent, he starts sounding strangulated. He pushes his voice too hard. When the emotions build, he yells. So, instead of watching a character's rage, you watch an actor go red in the face. You see the effort, not the emotion beneath.
That would be less noticeable were he not surrounded by a supporting cast filled with more quietly impassioned performances. Miles's Bolingbroke is exemplary. Lean, austere and strong, he's alert yet never tense, which makes him appear supremely powerful. By showing less than Spacey, he suggests far more.
Peter Eyre is similarly exacting as the faithful Duke of York. His commanding gravitas and warm regret come across almost as an unintentional rebuke to the empty skill of Spacey's playing.
Nunn was once famous for his Shakespeare stagings. His terrifying "Macbeth" has never been bettered. This production bears his hallmark of narrative clarity. The politicking is delineated with passion, yet it rarely sweeps you along and it fails to redefine the play as his finest productions have done.
Strained Parallels
He is more than equal to the strongest scenes, especially Richard's abdication, which is also Spacey's finest moment. Nunn's staging, with rival factions facing each other across the set, is superbly taut. The tension rockets by the brave interruption of the Bishop of Carlisle (Sidney Livingstone), who leaps up to bar the throne. His prophesy, that Richard relinquishing the divine right of kings to rule will bring England to a state of "Disorder, horror, fear and mutiny," is properly chilling.
Elsewhere, you not only feel the strain, you also feel much of it to be extraneous. Video crowd scenes push contemporary political parallels too far.
The tragicomic scene where the Duke and Duchess of York discover that their son (hyperactive Oliver Kieran-Jones) is plotting treason is let down by the one that follows where the Duchess (Susan Tracy) repeatedly begs Bolingbroke for her son's life. The writing is funny enough. Putting her in comic motorcycle leathers and helmet is another case of Nunn overplaying his hand.
At the Old Vic, London, through Nov. 26.
Source: Bloomberg
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