Shakespeare’s Richard II is a play of tragic descents, triumphant ascents, and rapturous poetry. New York City’s Sonnet Repertory Theatre, Inc. and Matchbook Productions teamed together for a new production, which closed last night, that perfectly captured the various highs and lows that the large cast of characters experiences over the course of the play by using a rather unique concept–the low-flying trapeze. With a set composed of a white backdrop and four trapezes on which eight actors taking on twenty-two roles among them, swung at different points in the play, director Steven Cole Hughes rather bravely took a play that otherwise leads its characters on a more internal journey and externalized their emotions through the aerial arts.
In a musical, characters’ emotions that are too overwhelming to keep bottled up in side burst forth from them through song. In this Richard II, the trapeze was used in the same capacity, to stunning effect. People rose and fell, cascaded and swung in time to their churning emotions. At times, it was used comedically, in order to represent things such as riding horses, at times innovatively, such as when the swings were hooked together and the cast transformed into a living ship, at times invigoratingly, to depict combat, at times passionately–the King and Queen’s lovemaking represented in lithe, almost lyrical aerial ballet–at times tragically, when characters were hanged or murdered. Throughout, the trapezes increased the play’s dynamic energy tenfold, the rise and fall of kings paralleled by the rise and fall of swings, actors sinuously intwining with one another or violently casting one another away or playfully flying together.
The actors themselves were dressed in costumes that called to mind both troupes of nineteenth century traveling players and a circus, while the scoring was provided by two on-stage musicians, playing music on an accordion, a violin, a trumpet, and a guitar reminiscent of The Decemberists, redolent of folk and sea shanty influences, all of which added a bohemian atmosphere and vibe to the production. In a cast of very strong actors, the stand-outs were Vince Nappo as Richard, who beautifully captured the king’s early arrogance as well as his later impotence at his fall, and Mat Hostetler, who demonstrated fantastic comedic timing and was able to gracefully differentiate between his four roles vividly and memorably.
While it is too late to now see this Richard II, I would highly recommend that fans of classic-theatre-given-fresh-interpretations seek out future Sonnet Rep productions and that people interested in seeing how gorgeously and effectively traditional theatre can be married to the trapeze look up Matchbook Productions. It is rare to see off or off-off-Broadway theatre performed so professionally and with such polish. I could easily imagine this production mounted on a larger stage and running a very long time. It is so wonderful when a concept that at first seems like it might be a simple gimmick ends up working so exquisitely, enhancing a work’s dramatic structure and dexterously weaving together theme and form. Just brilliant.
Related posts:
- “Sad Cypress”: Sonnet Rep’s Twelfth Night
- Coram Boy
- “What’s Hecuba to Him or Him to Hecuba?”: The Pearl Theatre’s Frustrating Hamlet
- Sunday in the Park with George
- Shakespeare Blogging
