DruidShakespeare: Richard III

See it if you are looking for shakespeare spoken with clarity & want richard III to be both 100% villainous & comedically likable at the same time

Don't see it if you find shakespeare boring (duh), you're confused by double & triple casting & you're turned off by murderous ambition portrayed for laughs

Also aaron monaghan throws everything in his actor's arsenal into his portrayal of richard III, except for layers of complexity. from the moment he pops up from a hole in the earth, his richard is nakedly ambitious, gleefully ruthless, singularly focused, and one-dimensionally villainous. no sense at all of the sorely abused becoming a heartless abuser. marie mullen stands out as his mother, the banished queen margaret (not so much when she plays the lord mayor). marty rea is touching as the wrongfully imprisoned clarence & very droll as catesby the executioner, albeit a bit more monty python than shakespeare. the other performances are meh to feh! catesby is the only character who speaks with a brogue --perhaps druid went for barely-british accents to accommodate american audiences. it might be worthwhile to bone up on shakespeare's "henriad" or at least review "the war of the roses" --the climactic battle between the yorks & lancasters is muddled beyond comprehension in this production.... Read more Read less