{"id":1758,"date":"2019-04-07T17:12:53","date_gmt":"2019-04-07T16:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1758"},"modified":"2019-04-07T17:15:14","modified_gmt":"2019-04-07T16:15:14","slug":"propwatch-the-mirror-in-richard-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2019\/04\/propwatch-the-mirror-in-richard-ii.html","title":{"rendered":"Propwatch: the mirror in Richard II"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Richard II hands over the crown to a usurper, and the now-deposed monarch asks for a mirror. \u2018That it may show me what a face I have.\u2019 In the new production at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse<\/a> at the Globe, the glass is a rectangle, size of an i-pad. Richard takes it in both hands and looks, long and hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What face does Richard see? Not, as in virtually any\nprevious production, the face of a white man, one of a rarely-broken chain trudging\nback to the play\u2019s premiere in 1595. But, this time, the face of a black woman,\nAdjoa Andoh. What does it mean to see that face?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the past two decades, black actors cast as kings\nhave helped change the mood music on the British stage. There\u2019s something about\nthe twin sacrosancturies of Shakespeare and English royalty that resonated when\nDavid Oyelowo played Henry VI at the RSC (in 2000, followed by Chuk Iwuji in\nrevival) and Adrian Lester was Henry V at the National three years later,\ntaking on a role suffused with British pluck since Olivier\u2019s Wehrmacht-baiting film.\nIf the national pageant can be claimed, they seemed to argue, everything is up\nfor grabs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now, almost 20 years on, Andoh and Lynette Linton\nco-direct the first British production of a Shakespeare play entirely performed\nby women of colour. It\u2019s another landmark that feels almost inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does it mean to have Andoh playing Richard? Nothing and everything. Nothing because, surrounded by women of colour, her Richard isn\u2019t an exception. Every bloke in this bloke-laden drama is played by a woman, All the dead white dudes are resurrected by people of colour. A ruler, played by one black woman, gives way to a usurper played by another black woman (Sarah Niles\u2019 sturdy Bolingbroke). Bracingly, in an instant, this all becomes the new normal. The auditorium is hung with photos of the cast\u2019s female forbears \u2013 grannies and aunties in excelsis \u2013 which rewrites heritage drama in a stroke. (The gorgeous design, with costumes simply glowing in the candlelight, is by Rajha Shakiry – photo above by Ingrid Pollard.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which also means here is that no actor feels any need to serve\nas ambassador for their character. So often, in trad Shakespeare, the actor\nplaying Ophelia or Imogen or (good luck with this one) Miranda will talk about\nhow she\u2019s actually a really strong female character, as if to stake her ground\namid a sea of bloke. But here, the cast don\u2019t have to be advocates. The effect\nhas an almost satirical edge, as they don\u2019t need to coddle the entitled mighty or\nsquabbling second-raters, testy with testosterone. My favourite may be Indra\nOv\u00e9 as both a piratical Mowbray and a vindictive Northumberland \u2013 unscrupulous power\nplayers both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Andoh\u2019s Richard is<\/em> everything. Female actors often hymn the new expressive opportunities they get when cast as classical male leads \u2013 apart from anything else, the chance to carry the brimming weight of a story from first to last. For actors of colour, it\u2019s even rarer. \u2018You don\u2019t get the same opportunities, it\u2019s just plain,\u2019 Cecilia Noble<\/a> said in a recent interview. \u2018There\u2019s no denying that my counterparts have probably played hundreds of leads whereas I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever been seen for a lead on TV.\u2019 I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen Andoh hold the centre of a play (though she\u2019s recently been witheringly focus-pulling in Julius Caesar, <\/em>at both the RSC and Bridge Theatre, and Leave Taking<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The face in the mirror is just the start of this story<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So to see and hear Andoh let rip at a flawed protagonist,\nusing the full extent of her extraordinary voice, is thrilling. She can snap, sing,\ncroon, roar, ricochet through Richard\u2019s lambent verse. This is one Shakespeare\nshow where you leave wishing you could buy the cast album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it may be inspiring for hers to be the face in\nRichard\u2019s mirror, but she doesn\u2019t give him any quarter. In his pomp, Andoh\u2019s\nRichard arrives with a derisive bark, and messes with his courtiers\u2019 lives with\nwide-eyed delight. He\u2019s mocking, mean, even cruel. I\u2019ve also never noticed\nbefore how venal Richard is \u2013 a lot of the complaints about him are financial,\nand Andoh and Linton bring his avarice to the fore. A scene with his queen has\nthem both in the counting-house, weighing out dubiously-gotten gains. Richard\nplays a contemptuously high-risk game, and Andoh shows us why he\u2019s bound to\nlose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, when power is gone, Richard is bewildered by his reflection. \u2018Was this the face\/ That like the sun did make beholders wink?\u2019 The monarch\u2019s \u2018brittle glory\u2019 lost, Andoh breaks the mirror \u2013 not on the ground, as usual, but by smashing it on her forehead. The face destroys its own reflection, and a whole range of ideas deepen the role, a new palette of colours enters her voice. The face in the mirror is just the start of this story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Propwatch previously on Richard II<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard II hands over the crown to a usurper, and the now-deposed monarch asks for a mirror. \u2018That it may show me what a face I have.\u2019 In the new production at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe, the glass is a rectangle, size of an i-pad. Richard takes it in both hands and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[322,321,574,32,68,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-props","9":"tag-propwatch","10":"tag-richard-ii","11":"tag-shakespeare","12":"tag-shakespeares-globe","13":"tag-theatre","14":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1758"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1762,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions\/1762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}