RICHARD III - On the Throne of Earth and Heaven

RICHARD III ON THE THRONE OF EARTH AND HEAVEN

Ádám Burák

[email protected]

August 2014

Ádám Burák Richard III

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CONTENTS

I. Preparation ................................................................................................ 3

II. Interpretation ............................................................................................. 5

III. The Throne Between Earth and Heaven .................................................... 8

IV. Process .................................................................................................... 10

V. Process ..................................................................................................... 15

VI. Sacred Places ............................................................................................ 18

VII. Feedbacks of a Hard Process .................................................................... 20

VIII. Appendix ................................................................................................. 22


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PREPARATION

I was an acting student and supporting actor at the New Theatre in Budapest in 2008 when I had a conversation with one of my classmates. He was famous of declaiming drunk the great monologues from Richard III after a few cups of shots. Anyway we had this particular conversation above a bottle of white wine when I promised him if I’ll have the opportunity to direct Richard III I will ask him to play the title role. In those days I’ve already had three or four directed shows so far but I was mainly an actor. I could never expect that I will turn to directing and stop acting in two years.

I started my BA Theatre Directing studies two years later in Romania where we planned to go together with a small group from the New Theatre but he changed his mind in the last minute. I applied only for the directing course and when he tried the acting course one year later he could pass only into puppet acting. So one and a half years later we studied in the same University when my head of course gave us the task in the 5th semester to direct an exam of a Shakespeare play. I liked Richard III however I wasn’t as obsessed with the text as he. László Bocsárdi one of the greatest Romanian directors, who I worked with as his assistant director, said once that if you have Hamlet in your ensemble; stage the Hamlet. If you have only a wonderful Ophelia and a great Claudius never think about to stage the play. According to these words immediately popped into my head that I have a great Richard. I should state he is perfect to act Richard so he casted himself very precisely years ago when he learned these lines. It was extremely clear that I will work on Richard III and I chose the hardest scene with Lady Anne, which scene’s sudden turn is one of the biggest mysteries in literature. I think the most important element of Anne’s personality is the harsh and dignified attitude which she loses step by step during this scene. One of Áron’s classmates had exactly these necessary characteristics in her personal life which she could transform into her roles as well. Casting was done. I was focusing that exam to this almost unbelievable change which goes through Anne which obviously strictly connected to Richard’s behaviour. Are these words sounds like truth or not all of them? Is there any other reason, except the weakness of women, why she changes her whole approach above his father-in-law’s, furthermore the king’s body? Is it really the biggest love story in Anne’s life? I decided I don’t think so that we talk about love anyway. Where’s a kiss in the text? Where are the soft, sensible words? Just in Richard’s lines. At least we discovered that Anne really needs this marriage. She just recently, and through Richard’s arm, became no one, outsider in this royal family, she buried his husband, the prince and also the king. She is not the royal blood line, she needed and now again she needs a man to raise her. She is in trouble in the beginning


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of the scene because she is out of the play board. Then she leaves as a queen after sixteen minutes. Based on this discovery I think this scene is influenced as much political as personal aspects. I can’t see that the scene ends in a hot kiss or a sensitive shivering. Anne is too tactical motivation speaker in her opening monologue and too clever in their arguments to let make a fool of herself. I don’t want to deny that Richard’s rough court is fascinating to her I just state that this marriage gives a future to her again and we should not leave this circumstance out of consideration. So I think it’s rather a political deal with sexual aspects and attraction than a sobbing love story.

We realized another extremely important opportunity during the creation of this exam. This discovery became later one of the main principles of my concept. Most of the concepts maintain the opening monologue’s requirement to create a direct, present time communication with the audience members then later somehow they slowly forget it. They start with an incredible intense relationship between the observers and the presenter and then they fall back into the regulations of the ‘fourth wall’ theatre concept. Based on the written materials which proof how the Globe looked like in Shakespeare’s age we can very easily imagine how he used the audience. If I stand in the Globe’s auditorium (450 years later) it clears up that all the performances in daylight(!) dealed with the observers as present time beings. Richard talks about his plans. These are strictly confidential information so everyone who bought a ticket to this performance is in the inner circle of trust. But what does he talk about exactly?


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INTERPRETATION

I think the major message of his speech is that nothing is acceptable around us. As a matter of fact there is no other statement in the world which fits better to the state of Hungary now. So he says everything is wrong around us, we should agree because we also feel this somehow and he doesn’t specify his opinion. There are no real feelings, no trust; the enemies of the battlefield are both in the palace, smiling and waiting with sharp knives to stab into each other’s back. Is this peace? This world is not black and white in which you can figure out Hastings a friend or enemy is.1 This is a world in which Clarence after betrayed his whole royal family2 could serenely wait for the crown as second in the line. Where he, Richard, must pursue through the half of the battlefield King Henry VI to stab him before his king brother pardons him.3 Where the war ‘capers nimbly in a lady's chamber | To the lascivious pleasing of a lute’4. He decided before we stepped into the theatre what he will do, now he’s just presenting to us, to the audience.

He planned a stunt which he would like to perform now for us and he’s right; we even bought the ticket to see it. He analyses the circumstances we are all strucked in and waits for our opinions before specializes the particular moves of the plan. Silence. So everybody agrees he can move forward. No one stops him, not a single voice from the audience says ‘wait, I don’t agree’ and if no one disagrees then no one has problems with the plan he presented. I think this thought is one of the most important issues of my concept, which is strictly connected to the general social and political problems of Hungary; we mustn’t state we agree because if we stay silent and don’t protest unfortunately we also agreed already, didn’t assume our own opinion. Richard is a brilliant motivation speaker. He is walking through the line step by step as he leads us through even greater and more sickening deeds. When he commands the death of the teens in the Tower he turns to us and explains he hasn’t got any other choice and he is ‘So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin: | Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.’5 So the death of the prince is just another necessary move which he must take. No one resists. In 70 minutes he presents his stunt to gain the crown and we’re not only following him rather somehow we look up to him. We are, with a constantly growing revulsion, fascinated how could this one man change and break the rules of the whole world.

1 I.1. 2 Henry VI. Part III. 3 At the same place. 4 I.1. 5 IV.2.


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He has an extremely precise and matured plan how he can sit in the throne however this achievement is too huge to think about what he will do after he became the king. For me the whole arch of the play looks like the story of a sprinter. He trains himself very hard for that short distance, he does his best to overstep his limits during the race and when he reached the 100 meters and starts to slow down in euphoria he recognizes that the distance was 1000 meters. What could he do if he used all his spared energy to hit the 100 meters? So we are, unfortunately to Richard, there as observers not only of his successes but his flops and struggles as well. We stepped together on this way after the opening monologue so we share the good and bad events also like in a marriage. The most important event of this interpretation is, which is I’m absolutely sure not my big discovery because Shakespeare couldn’t stage otherwise as I’ve written above, when Richmond comes. Richard asks the audience as his army to stand up and fight for him in the name of St. George. Then when Richmond is within his reach and still approaches he shouts to us in despair and anger to stand between them and hold him back with our own body; die for Richard’s life. No one moves however it looked like in the past 90 minutes everyone agrees with everything what we did together. Then Richmond finishes him off in a wink of an eye. Richard’s lying with his face deep in the wet ground and Richmond thanks us for our help to slaughter the mad dog. 6 And we suddenly recognize, because we didn’t give voice to our opinion, we drifted in the same situation again.

The BK Television had an interview with me two days before the opening night and they really wanted to force me with their questions again and again to confess what kind of actual political message we would like to deliver with this show. This way of thinking is the worst part of the Hungarian mentality; we try to separate the political left from the right, the white from the black, as Richard does. No one could stay independent or neutral in this fight between the socialists and liberalists; you must decide which side you’re on. I believe life is not black or white, we have a bunch of other colours between them. My Richard III is a political performance it encourages the audience to stand for their sentiment. If anything could happen in Hungary without any protestation, if the whole country could slip 25 years after the change into a visible dictatorship again and the citizens don’t stand for their will how could we expect things will turn better? If we are just silent observers of our lives anyone can use us to realize his own conception, doesn’t matter how bloody deeds lead him to reach his goal. This is a political and contemporary performance in these aspects. Unfortunately our performance which argues with the mechanism of the Hungarian system and controversial two-party mentality we have was turned on the most popular review website, which is strictly connected to the socialist opposition, into a critical

6 ’God and your arms be praised, victorious friends, | The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.’ V.5.


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interpretation dedicated to the liberalism government.7 The headline was picked up from Hastings’ dead scene and filled with actual political content; ‘Woe, woe for England!’.8 Then an unmistakeable line below as reflection of the prime minister’s takeover; ‘The leader is a psychopath without any doubt. Obsessed and demented by the power.’ One additional information is that Viktor Orbán has built a football stadium in April from £3,074,576 with 3000 seats in his hometown where the population is 1814 people. I’m so disappointed how the social circumstances force you to choose a side and when you direct a politically neutral performance, the critics expound a blind political message in that and pulls you in their company. After this review, which is absolutely positive and professional anyways, the production company which owns this show won’t be able to sell it to government influenced theatres and festivals.

7 source: www.revizoronline.com/hu/cikk/5138/william-shakespeare-iii-richard-zsambeki-szinhazi-bazis-manna-produkcio/?cat_id=7&first=0 8 III.4.


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THE THRONE BETWEEN EARTH AND HEAVEN

There is another major pillar of the concept which is connected to our shared and personal belief. A couple of years ago I read Martin Lings’ book in Hungarian language, The Secret of Shakespeare: His Greatest Plays seen in the Light of Sacred Art9 which explicates a theory through twelve great plays of Shakespeare, how the texts are influenced by the renaissance feeling and catholic belief at the turn of the world view. Richard III is not included. This book was a catalyst in the birth of this performance’s concept. My opinion is the major conflict in Richard III is between Richard and God. He invites in the opening monologue God to a duel. He constantly watches the sky when will punish him God’s revenge after his deeds. Then the heaven stays silent.

They were never a family of belief. They should have been, when after York’s death Edward must have sat on the throne and he united the opposite sides to end the feuds with a marriage and linked them strong in the forgiveness of the catholic belief. It’s not a surprise that Clarence, who betrayed his family then turned back in the moment of their victory,10 became an obsessed religious man.11 So Richard suddenly looks around and finds himself in a family which praises the God who created him with all the abnormalities which ruin his life. How could he kneel to the feet of this God? He, who was always kicked out of the whore Madame Shore’s bed who slept literarily with the whole world,12 he who always faced with his diseases when the sun shined behind his shoulders.13 He should accept that all the living creatures are created by God who created him a cripple to sour his entire life or to mockingly laugh on him. We can agree the opening situation is an unbearable, unsolvable situation. A world-famous Hungarian director, Gábor Székely said in the 90’s in an interview that ‘a good play starts at the point when the characters can’t bear their situation anymore’.14 He must protest against this world order, he can’t do anything else. I should mention he was waiting in silence for a while and tried to contain his erupting anger. But he can’t stay long in this stagnate position with all these thoughts he is talking about in the opening monologue. He is a man of war he can’t do anything in peace when everyone spends his or her time locked in the bedrooms and ‘making peace’. He must create chaos of this peace to build his own black and white world. If his own brothers stand

9 Quinta Essentia, distributed by Archetype, (1998), ISBN 1-870196-15-5 10 Henry VI. Part III. 11 Otherwise who forget his belief in his last desperation before his death. I.4. 12 Probably even Brakenbury had an affair with Madame Shore according to the opening scene with Clarence. I.1. 13 I.1. 14 Tamás Mészáros: Kulisszák nélkül, Népművelési Propaganda Iroda, ISBN 963-562-267-8


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in the way of this concept they must disappear. It’s the same when you direct a play. The shared achievement is much more important than the individuals. The great thought, the realization of the big plan is more important than the lives of his family members who can’t share his opinion.

He denies the existence of God. He searches for a single sign during the whole performance which forces him to stop, which warns him he can’t do anything against the human mankind and the law of God. He cut the throats of kids, kills his own brother, which is his first radical move and also the biggest sin of all according to the Bible, ruins the life of at least two women and so on. There is not a single sign of God’s or any other higher justice’s objection. So if God is so silent we must accept he doesn’t exist at all. If he doesn’t exist Richard can place his throne in the middle of the mortal and immortal world. Then he, during the crowning, can become the king of Earth and Heaven in the same time. God doesn’t react to his dethronement.

Unfortunately Richard’s plans and energy, as I mentioned before, last only until the crowning. He sits on his throne, which was also in our performance Henry VI’s coffin during the Anne-Richard scene, and doesn’t know exactly how to be a king. He knew how to become a king, now he is confused. Then he continues what he did before, he can’t change his role’s principles, removes the people around him. First of all Buckingham who raised him to king and who is smart enough to bring him down and do the process again with someone else. Then Catesby comes who replaces somehow Buckingham.

‘I will converse with iron-witted fools And unrespective boys: none are for me That look into me with considerate eyes’15

I believe there are only two characters in the whole play who don’t betray him; Buckingham and Catesby whom he cuts off. He is surrounded with iron-witted fools without any doubt when he is on the field. He is absolutely alone when the ghosts of his victims appear as manifestations of a higher judgement. I think in our concept this is the very point when Richard falls. He faces with the power and disapprobation he waited for in 70 minutes. Suddenly he can’t deal with the proof that there must be something above us and he collapses. Then as the judgement of God on a resounding Gregorian choir someone, a Richmond comes and eliminates him in half a minute. Him, who was unstoppable and unbeatable during the whole performance. Then this Richmond thanks the audience their help and, because during the fight he was hurt, with slow but resolute steps limps out from the stage.

15 VI.2.


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MANIFESTATION

The rehearsal period was quite extraordinary according to the mixed cast from Hungary and Romania and the two places where we performed the show, one in Tirgu Mures and the official opening night in the Ruined Church of Zsámbék. Based on these circumstances the process was divided into two parts, a preparation period in the ‘Harul’ Baptist Church of Tirgu Mures from 6th May 2014 which concluded in a closed premiere and then the two weeks refreshing rehearsal process with two actor changes (one was planned, one was accidently) in Budapest and Zsámbék. Based on the thoughts I talked about above I wanted to place the show in a sacred place where we can touch the presence of God. Furthermore the dethroning of God is much more radical if it happens in his own church. I started to deal with the priest of the Romanian Baptist church called ‘Harul’ to let us in for three-four rehearsals and the presentation. Fortunately he was a theatre lover, his children are members of the amateur acting company of the primary school so he convinced the board of the church to let us in. The dome of the ‘Harul’ is an extraordinary space. They started to build from donations to a magnificent place of prayer but the flow of the donations suddenly stalled with the worldwide economy crisis. They believed the works on the dome will continue shortly so they left there all the machines and tools. As later cleared up for three entire years. When we stepped in the whole place was covered with dust and bird dropping, the welder’s eyeglasses were hanging there on an iron tube and pigeons flew in and out with harsh slats of its wings. The Manna Production Company who invested in my concept agreed with the Theatre of Zsámbék after I chose the Ruined Church to stage there the Hungarian version of the show. At least I had two utterly different places to the same interpretation. We had a lot of skype-meetings with my set- and costume designer and the situation became just more complicated after we agreed with a couple of theatres for the international tour and it cleared up that we should occasionally bring the performance into a black box. I confess we couldn’t solve the problem. She, Kinga Erdély designer, collected renaissance style costumes to the Harul version and gothic style costumes to Zsámbék. Harul has a modern architecture where we can bring almost anything, but the Ruined Church is a late roman, early gothic building which doesn’t match with the renaissance style.

I regulated a bit the interpretation; in the case of the Harul Edward IV and his followers and obviously his predecessors built the basement of a Christian religious system which is now under construction, as the church, and Richard goes against the constantly growing idea. Everyone walks on the floor as on the marble of the palace, Richard is the only one with his massive boots who realizes that they are stepping on


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debris. He is the only one who can see the real relations behind the smiles.16 The circumstances of the Ruined Church were more difficult because its gothic style was set. Kinga tried a bunch of variations till we turned back to the original instinct, to find basically contemporary costumes which are made with the same or similar sewing pattern as the gothic costumes. Then the splendid renaissance costumes can find their place in the ghost scene which breaks the overall costume design concept. Additional issues appeared when Eszter Júlia Szilasi, who played Lady Anne and Elisabeth in the Romanian version got her appointment date for MA Acting Course application exam to the University of Arts in Tirgu Mures exactly in the same time as our final rehearsal week in Zsámbék. It was clear that László Zsolt Bartha couldn’t act in the Hungarian version because he started another rehearsal process at the National Theatre of Tirgu Mures where he has a temporary contract as member of the company. I asked a very talented actor, György Vass in the mid of March to take over Clarence/Lord Mayor/Catesby’s role. We asked in the last minute, 9 days before the opening night Erika Szabó to understudy Eszter’s place but she had a run in Zalaegerszeg till 20th July so it was only five days to her to jump in these difficult and complex roles. The fresh approach of the newcomers and the change of the space unequivocally changed a lot of details and meanings in the interpretation so literally I almost directed two different shows from Richard III.

When I created my concept in August 2013 I cut the entire play and re-edited to four actors with switched roles. There are a couple of other plays by Shakespeare which are so centralised as this however there isn’t any which pushes a negative character in the middle of the happenings. In Macbeth the storyline is not based on only Macbeth, the Lady has almost equal importance in that dramaturgic structure as Othello and Iago shares the attention as well. My most important question was this; how could we as audience follow this man? It’s obvious without any doubt that we can only follow a man, a frail man, not a two-dimensional picture of some manifestation of the devil. I tried, and the critics were very pleased with the playtext, to focus on the events which arise from Richard, from his plan, from his great though. The successes and flops as well in a dramatic arch which doesn’t neglect the fact he needs supporters and partners because he is, doesn’t matter how far he can go, not able to fight through the big plan alone. He needs a Buckingham, a Catesby, a frightened Lord Mayor etc. So the roles set up as follows:

First actor - Richard First actress - Lady Anne, Queen Elisabeth (Ghost of Lady Anne)

16 II.1.


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Second actor - Brakenbury, Guard, Buckingham, Ratcliffe, Richmond (Ghost of King Henry VI and Buckingham)

Third actor - Clarence, Hastings, Guard, Catesby, Lord Mayor (Ghost of Clarence and Hastings)

I extended Catesby’s character with a couple of lines from other smaller roles but always in the scenes where he is also there and he could say the statement as well. In our 90 minutes long version the storyline is divided to two parts. The first when Buckingham stands beside Richard and the second when Catesby. Then he cuts off at least both of them. The betrayed Buckingham comes back at the end of the performance with the same actor as Richmond to restore the order of the world. The deathly pale Lord Mayor gets the cut off head of Hastings to his hands as intimidation, whom he, the same actor played one scene before. We discovered incredible opportunities through the doublings in the footsteps of the Shakespearean dramaturgy. Another great revelation is the place and the parallelism of Lady Anne’s and Queen Elisabeth’s scenes.

First of all it’s really interesting that in this play there are only strong woman characters. Their strength is different but all of them are steeled by the changing time and various sufferings. I cut out Queen Margaret because I wanted to throw the similarities of the two big scenes into relief. I think these scenes are absolutely the same; the only difference between them is in Richard’s approach and physical, mental state. He uses the same tricks and almost the same phrases to reach his goal, however in the argument with Anne he can lead the conversation so easily. He never expected otherwise this will be so simple; the proof is his emotional eruption in the next monologue. Like a sprinter again who finished the distance, tore the band with his chest and can’t believe meanwhile he pants for breath that he won the competition. He roars. Roars to heaven like an animal which breaks loose. As I mentioned before when the scene starts with Elisabeth about 40 minutes later he is extremely tired. Elisabeth is a very clever woman who is tired and mature enough not to get involved in a shouting argument with Richard. She believes the faith will punish Richard for what he did so the only thing to do is waiting patiently till the time comes.17 Richard uses exactly the same rhetoric and even the dramaturgic structure of the scene is the same, but he falls in this rational argument. The beautiful is that he really can’t believe that the phrases he used always with success are not working here. He falls in desperate. Elisabeth leads the scene he is just struggling as a fish in the net, tries to slip out from the situation.

17 Otherwise she lasted Richard out with seven years. www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/647679/Elizabeth-Woodville


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‘QUEEN ELIZABETH Swear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd. KING RICHARD III Now, by the world-- QUEEN ELIZABETH 'Tis full of thy foul wrongs. KING RICHARD III My father's death-- QUEEN ELIZABETH Thy life hath that dishonour'd. KING RICHARD III Then, by myself-- QUEEN ELIZABETH Thyself thyself misusest. KING RICHARD III Why then, by God--18

These two scenes show us, in opposite points of the performance as mirrors of each other, how Richard collapses under the pressure of his title and how their convincing tactics lose their sense of truth and unstoppable power. His words suddenly start to sound fake which experience he never had before.

His personal collapse leads obviously to the mouldering of his ‘new world’, because he built a structure which relies on one person, who is now falling down. The mirrors of the state of the empire are the soldiers, Ratcliffe and Catesby in Act IV scene 4, both are just running in and out with the fresh news which absolutely contradict each other. Ratcliffe is the ‘iron-witted’ fool who is he talking about earlier, he is literally not capable to remember and do the commands he asks him. However he must tell everything to Ratcliffe because he can’t trust in Catesby anymore after the palace scene I mentioned above. We are, as audience members and still closest confidants and observers of Richard, sitting in the palace and dealing with the next marriage without any sense what’s happening outside the walls. Richard now can’t focus on various things in the same time. He did before during he rose in the throne but now he is unable. When he, after the controversial victory he gained against Elisabeth, flops down in the throne, a comical figure, Ratcliffe, tries to rush through the throne room without making any noise. He quivers when Richard stops him. Then he reports that Richmond is coming through the sea. Richard can’t lead the happenings, he is behind them. I think to act this slowly splitting up state is the leading actor’s hardest work. How he acted in the beginning based on his belief that he can take over this enormous plan alone and how he faces later with the fact that he needed Buckingham’s help, how he redundantize Buckingham and suffers from his loneliness in the ocean of issues then at least how his sense shatters under the pressure of 18 IV.4.


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maintaining his new-born structure. It’s a hard job to act through this whole arch. Furthermore in the second part of our performance, the presence his audience whom he invited to watch through this event starts getting even more and more inconvenient. He wishes sometimes, for example during the Elisabeth scene, that he could vanish these people who are following through his struggling. He tries to close the circle of attention during this whole scene to an intimate conversation between them. Then Elisabeth always breaks this atmosphere and invites the audience to the argument with targeted sentences which Richard tries to reduce to two again. Later he has so many additional issues to deal with and can’t concentrate on his falling respect in the eyes of his supporters.


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PROCESS

The first rehearsal period with Eszter and Zsolt in the cast lasted for two and a half weeks and took place in the University of Arts in Tirgu Mures then in the ‘Harul’ Church. Shakespeare’s language is always difficult it doesn’t matter is it the original or a translation so we worked in the first three days just with the text around the table. Obviously the meaning of a couple of phrases and lines came out in the second rehearsing process after one and a half months when we started to work again on the basic situations. Áron is started to get closer to the motivations and problems of his character. We agreed we won’t heighten the physical diseases of Richard rather try to find the answers what we need to suggest with these problems. Then our solution based on a very simple psychological observation. We got rid of the rump and maintained his leg problems. Then, in the beginning Áron just pictures that something is wrong but it’s only visible when he walks down for example from the little hump where he starts the performance on Zsámbék. So it’s not visible too many times, then the stress enlarges it, especially after he extrudes Buckingham, his leg starts to hurt more and more even till he must press his knee during walking. His physical state reflects on his struggling soul. Áron could definitely get this better in the Zsámbék-version of the show.

The hardest thing to the actors was, in the overall process, to feel how to speak from unflinching belief. It doesn’t sound so hard but it is. I think this is the mayor difference between acting a contemporary role and a Shakespearean character; you can’t be simply a human. When you, for instance as Lady Anne, spits your curse to Richard facing to a huge ruined cathedral you can’t curse him as you curse someone on the street. I, as audience member, must feel shivering during this curse because behind this curse is the anger of God and of the dead king who is now just skin and bones in his coffin down by Anne’s legs. This curse must rock the whole world and I should feel that the bare ground will shake and open to swallow Richard as it happened with Don Juan in the last scene of Moliére’s version. To be honest I think I couldn’t lead my actress on the right way, and a rehearsal process is full with doubts when it finishes, because I couldn’t achieve this effect what I described with Erika and I could with Eszter two months earlier. She fought for it but at least she could manage the shivering on my back. I think Anne strongly believes that heaven will punish Richard sooner or later for what he did. She shares this same belief with Elisabeth.

‘But that still use of grief makes wild grief tame, My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys


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Till that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes’19 She is tired as well, she buried almost all of her children, also her husband but she still believes in the faith that these deeds will be punished by a higher power. This scene is also a huge acting trial. According to the differences between the two scenes (Anne and Elisabeth) both of the characters must be tired however the scene shouldn’t become boring. This tiredness which manifests in their argument and the composition of their words must create the sharpness of the scene. It sounds a bit controversial but for example Eszter or Erika should act during the lines above that a couple of months ago she could jump on him and with her bare hands scratch out Richard’s eyes. It is somehow part of the Brechtian method which says; what I’m not doing as an actor in the particular moment brings to attention what I’m actually doing. For example he says when I go out from to the stage right direction doesn’t mean that I went out to the right direction, it means that I didn’t go to the left direction.20 The choice was mine, I made a decision. I think these principles are leading this very difficult scene.

It is surprising how slight amount of ironic and sarcastic moments are in this play according to other Shakespeare plays. Boti Benedek led his Ratcliffe to the fine line between acting a fool and presenting a parody about a fool; between these two is a very sharp difference. I can laugh on the first one however in the case of the second first of all I must accept what he is doing cannot be realistic. After I accepted this I will complement all the not believable moments and my mind will turn them into believable. I like the very type of theatre where everything actually happens. So Boti had again and again difficulties to maintain the reality of Ratcliffe because from time to time he slipped into performing a picture of a fool. I suggested him that it will help if he tries to find the circumstances and motives of the character and stops playing the effect what this figure should generate in the audience. Richard has a couple of funny moments and lines as well. For example on the first performance in Zsámbék a middle-age woman laughed out loud after the imagined curses at the unchangeable disappointment of this line; ‘But touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off, | Because you know, my lord, my mother lives.’21

We based our performance mostly on the power of the spoken words so there are not too many movements and visual effects in the show. However we agreed in an international tour after the first period and signed an agreement with theatres which hasn’t got any sacred space where we could perform the show between the same or at least similar circumstances. Then together with my designer we started to think about the difficulties of a performance in a black box. There are no sacred set elements –

19 IV.4. 20 For further reading: Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, Hill and Wang Publishers, New York, 1964. ISBN (13th edition): 978-0809005420 21 III.5.


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basically with the throne and the coffin we can’t even talk about any set –, just the costumes which, without the churches absolutely meaningless. To sum it up we felt that we need a couple of symbols we can use with major importance in a black box as well. Then I decided I want a puppet Edward IV. Kinga, my designer was very upset about it and we argued a long time, because we couldn’t afford a professional puppet maker at this period of the process, but two of our actors learned puppet making for three years as part of their course. I thought Edward’s state according to the whole structure of the play is very controversial. This character is there but I personally think it has no meaning and importance. It has less importance, to be honest, than Clarence has. So I tried to find a manifestation of a character that is standing between the throne and Richard but has no real importance, only God makes him bigger than he really is. We used the puppet in one scene when Richard tells the sick King that his command killed his own brother in the Tower. Then the puppet psychologically collapsed and Richard led him straightforward into the opened coffin of his enemy, the previous King, Henry VI. That’s all. Simple. However this human-sized puppet which based on the figures of the gothic painted windows gave more visual importance to the sacred interpretation.


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SACRED PLACES

We had a couple of major difficulties during the rehearsal period in Zsámbék. First of all our new actress, Erika, who took over the role in the last minute wasn’t there on the first week when we worked in Budapest. The production company’s rehearsal space was really a nightmare. It’s their main office as well in the heart of the city and it was originally a 3 meters high old flat with 5x5 meter big rooms, one for dining and one for living room. The space was too small, the level of the echo was annoying, overall the place was appropriate for only the discussions we had on the first day. On 20th July we moved to Zsámbék where we had the costume rehearsal, Boti brought with his car the costumes from the National Theatre of Tirgu Mures to Budapest which we rented for a year. Then on the second day we had rehearsals in the Theatre Basis because Gyuri had a small role in a new movie and he was filming. We run through the Buckingham-Richard and the Anne-Richard, Elisabeth-Richard scenes. Next day, first day with full members of cast on the 21st, when we couldn’t wait longer to go out and rehearse in the Ruined Church, from morning till late night it was an extremely heavy rain. We stucked in the Basis again and got a bit worried when the recently changed weather forecast showed the same for the rest of the week. Hopefully the weather became sunny and hot for the next morning so we started to rehearse in the church. After one and a half hour the director of the museum appeared and stated that based on the regulations of the Ministry of the Art Relics banned to us to step on the sacred ground of the church where they only permits to celebrate weddings. However the Catholic Church’s Headquarters permit us to do anything what we want. Somehow the ministry couldn’t change its mind; they stated it’s because the safety of the audiences and players, pieces could roll down from the wall and hurt someone during the performance. It’s very strange that any tourists who buy a ticket for 700 HUF (£2) can walk back and forth below these dangerous walls just we can’t. They banned us to use the walls of the museum, to step in the church and to step on the 600-800 years old rocks, doesn’t matter how big surface of them is out from the ground. They permitted to perform on the plain grass between the wall of the museum and the wall of the church in the crossing wind which blew away the voice of the actors. We couldn’t go against the rules of the ministry so we started to search for an alternate place on the basis. They didn’t organise a theatre performance in the ruined church for 5 years so the performing place was one of the biggest pillars of our marketing strategy. We could find only spaces without any sacred atmosphere; otherwise these were very interesting hangars and erecting shops, but we couldn’t change the general concept three days before the opening night. We drove back to the church and started to think about a solution on the grass. After a couple of hours we found a possibility which


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solved the problem of the wind and the general concept as well. My first and most important aim was to disbar the following first thought of the minds of the audience members; ‘How wonderful is this church... and how idiots are they to not performing inside.’ We built a cross-shaped performing place surrounded with chairs on the grass and the longer line of the cross faced to the church. So Richard could place his throne against the church and shouted to the walls his lines and the opposition also got bigger importance visually than at the Harul. Lots of the reviews specially praised the idea of the space. I wasn’t satisfied because this was a too big compromise, doesn’t matter how apt our idea was. As a matter of fact it solved the issue which we were dealing with through one and a half month about the transition to a black box space. The cross with the other elements clarified everything and last but not least the rows of the audience stopped the crossing wind. We had only two and a half days to rehearse in this space. Fortunately the whole performance was set and we could gear the moves to the space in five hours. I feared a lot during the process to perform a flop.


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FEEDBACKS OF A HARD PROCESS

Fortunately the rain kept clear itself of Zsámbék on both days of the performances. The opening night, we haven’t got preview-structure in Hungary, was a bit stressful to the actors as they told it later because the changes and difficulties of the rehearsing process. I watched them more than a hundred times acting these roles so I could recognise that this particular time is a bit under pressure. The clarity and continuity of the intentions and the rhythm of the show was a bit fragmentised, broken. They darted again and again to gain the arch of the feelings. I’m not able to see it anymore with a foreigner’s eyes so it’s hard to separate what I can recognise and the audience can’t from what both of us can. Anyway, the critics of the opening night loved it; especially Áron’s Richard was a great success with his shifting exaltation and my work on the dramaturgy to cut it to four actors. The critic I mentioned above according to his political review said that he read again the entire play one day before and to be honest he couldn’t imagine how could this play work with only four actors. And it did. The second performance absolutely shocked me. Everyone is afraid of the second performance which is always worse than the worst tries of the past days. The pressure vanishes, the actors who are suffering from hangover believe they know their roles because they gained a massive success at the opening night. So they don’t try to climb the mountain again, they rather start to search for the entrance of the elevator. I tried the best I could, I said to them we can easily skip the second and jump on the third like in the US they skip the 13th floor in the skyscrapers. I led a warming up and concentration boosting Meyerhold-training right before the start and prayed not to perform a crap show. At least it was much much better than the opening night which we captured with three cameras. The rhythm was perfect, new details started to appear in the acting, the arch of the energy and confrontations was one of the most precise ever. Explicitly we broke a tradition. We will never know why this happened on the 27th July, because the lack of pressure, the better audience, or we should thank the whole night to Meyerhold but what they all did was absolutely beyond the expectations. Áron was the biggest star of both nights; all the professionals and audience members were amazed by his achievement.

‘What happens when we’ve already won the most? If ours all the power and potency, no more aims to fight for – and God obviously wasn’t interested to react to Gloster’s enthronisation. So the infallible God still mistakes?’ 22 published the olvassbele.com. From another review on the revizoronline.hu; ‘It’s an intelligent, smart interpretation. Its artists don’t want to actualize the matters, they know; a

22 by István Bedő J.; http://olvassbele.com/2014/07/30/kifilezve-shakespeare-iii-richard-zsambek/


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Shakespeare play is always actual.’ 23 From a different one in the Népszabadság periodical: ‘Áron Dávid’s devilish, great Richard just hints the exterior incapacities which he is talking about in his famous monologue, furthermore he incorporates the way of the intonation to the handicaps of his birth[...]’24. He finishes with these words: ‘This Richard III is a terse, strong and interesting performance. However something important is missing from it.’ I don’t really know what is missing, it looks like he doesn’t know either, but we should find this last missing element during the longer run in September then during the international tour. Finally we have a task again to deal with. I’m happy because there is no perfect performance, it’s clear to us now that we are in the good direction to develop our performance further and to find, maybe, the mysterious missing thing. We’ll try very hard.

23 by Dezső Kovács; www.revizoronline.com/hu/cikk/5138/william-shakespeare-iii-richard-zsambeki-szinhazi-bazis-manna-produkcio/?cat_id=7&first=0 24 by László Zappe; Népszabadság, 01.08.2014.


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APPENDIX

1. PAGES FROM THE DIRECTOR’S COPY (RÉSZLET)


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2. POSTER


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3. COSTUME DRAWINGS BY KINGA ERDÉLY


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4. PICTURES (’HARUL’ BAPTIST CHURCH, TIRGU MURES)

REHEARSALS


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”HARUL” BAPTIST CHURCH


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TIRGU MURES

I.1. Richard (Dávid Áron)


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I.2. Richard and Anna (Dávid Áron és Szilasi Eszter) I.2. Richard (Dávid Áron)


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III.4. Buckingham (Benedek Botond Farkas)

III.4. Hastings and Richard (Bartha László Zsolt and Dávid Áron)


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I.2. Richard (Dávid Áron) III.7. Lord Mayor (Bartha László Zsolt)


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IV.4. Elisabeth and Richárd (Szilasi Eszter and Dávid Áron)


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V.3. Richard and the Ghost of Lady Anne V.3. Buckingham’s Ghost and Richard


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(Dávid Áron and Szilasi Eszter) (Benedek Botond Farkas and Dávid Áron)

V.4. Richard (Dávid Áron)


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V.4. Richmond and Richard (Benedek Botond Farkas and Dávid Áron) Photos by Kinga Erdély.


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THE RUINED CHURCH OF ZSÁMBÉK


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ZSÁMBÉK

I.1. Richard (Dávid Áron)

I.1. Richard and Clarence (Dávid Áron and Vass György)


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I.2. Noble men bring the coffin of Henry VI I.2. Richard and Anne


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(Vass György and Benedek Botond Farkas) (Dávid Áron and Szabó Erika)

III.4. Buckingham and Hastings (Benedek Botond Farkas and Vass György)


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III.5. & III.7. Lord Mayor, Richard and Buckingham (Vass György, Dávid Áron and Benedek B. Farkas)


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IV.4. Catesby, Richard and Ratcliffe (Vass György, Dávid Áron and Benedek Botond Farkas)

V.3. Richard and the Ghost of Clarence (Dávid Áron and Vass György)


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V.4. Richmond and Richard (Benedek Botond Farkas and Dávid Áron)

RICHARD III - On the Throne of Earth and Heaven

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Transcript of RICHARD III - On the Throne of Earth and Heaven