Michael Urie stars as Richard II in Red Bull production at Astor Place Theatre (photo by Carol Rosegg)
RICHARD II
Astor Place Theatre
434 Lafayette St.
Through December 21, $38-$300
www.redbulltheater.com
Craig Baldwin’s Red Bull adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Richard II gets off to a powerful start. As ticket holders enter the Astor Place Theatre, the king, portrayed by Michael Urie, is already onstage, kneeling in a glass cube serving as a cell, his bare back facing us. He is looking into a mirrored rear wall that reflects his face as well as members of the audience.
When the play proper begins, the jailed ruler says, “I have been studying how I may compare / This prison where I live unto the world: / And for because the world is populous / And here is not a creature but myself, / I cannot do it; yet I’ll hammer it out.” The opening soliloquy, which concludes with Richard asking, “Music do I hear?,” is followed by Aumerle (David Mattar Merten), the son of the duchess of York (Kathryn Meisle), singing along to the Eurythmics’ 1983 smash “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).”
The rest of the production could use a lot more hammering out as it travels between the 1960s, the 1980s, and the late fourteenth century, transforming the tragic tale of a king’s downfall into a time-warping gay fantasia that never finds its sense of purpose, its lofty ambitions misguided and bewildering.
The grandson of King Edward III, Richard took the throne when he was ten years old, and in this version, he has never grown out of his childlike nature, making seemingly arbitrary decisions to suit his whim at any given moment. Now in his early thirties, he finds himself caught in a battle between his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke (Grantham Coleman), and Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk (Daniel Stewart Sherman); each man has accused the other of being a traitor to the king and his realm. They face off in a senseless, energy-draining game of Russian roulette with six-shooters, emceed by the courtier Bushy (Sarin Monae West) as if it’s a professional wrestling match, complete with crowd sound effects that make Thomas the villain. When neither wins, the king banishes Henry for ten years, which his father, John of Gaunt (Ron Canada), negotiates down to six, while Mowbray is exiled for the rest of his life.
Shortly after the duel, a dying Gaunt worries about the future of England in Richard’s hands; in a wheelchair and breathing through an oxygen tank, he warns, “Now He that made me knows I see thee ill; / Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land / Wherein thou liest in reputation sick; / And thou, too careless patient as thou art, / Commit’st thy anointed body to the cure / Of those physicians that first wounded thee: / A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown.”
Soon, Bolingbroke is amassing an army to overthrow Richard, who has gone to Ireland to deal with rebel forces. Henry is supported by Lord Northumberland (Emily Swallow) and York, while the Bishop of Carlisle (Canada), the queen (Lux Pascal), Sir Stephen Scroop (Sherman), Bushy, Green (James Seol), Sir William Bagot (Ryan Spahn), and Aumerle (David Mattar Merten), the duchess’s son, remain loyal to the king.
Flashbacks reveal the king’s memories of better times, particularly hanging out with his favorites in a sauna and a drug-laden nightclub, where he does not hide his affection for Aumerle, even with his wife present. But when Henry and Richard meet again, the Bishop of Carlisle predicts, “The blood of English shall manure the ground, / And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars / Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound.”
“Confounding” is exactly right.
Craig Baldwin’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Richard II searches for its center (photo by Carol Rosegg)
Richard II is not one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays; it has never been made into a film, and major productions are few and far between. For example, it has been staged by the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park series only twice, in 1961 and 1987 (although it was scheduled for 2020 but instead was done as a radio play with André Holland in the lead). The Royal Shakespeare Company brought it to BAM in 2016 starring a fabulous David Tennant “portraying the dandy king with a bittersweet bisexual abandon and more than a touch of Jesus,” I wrote back then.
As much as I, and nearly the entire New York theater community, adore Michael Urie (The Government Inspector, Once Upon a Mattress), even he is not able to weave his way through the chaos and maelstrom (and fog). Onstage the entire 135 minutes, Urie does shine in a few instances, with some funny asides and gestures to the audience, but it’s hard to believe that he’s a king. The marquee depicts him wearing a pink spray-painted crown, eyes sadly cast down, so there’s more than a hint of the direction Baldwin will be taking, as many historians believe Richard was gay, but the show lacks focus; it’s all over the place. (Baldwin and Urie previously collaborated on Michael Kahn’s 2018–19 production of Hamlet for DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, in which Urie portrayed the melancholy Dane.)
Rodrigo Muñoz’s costumes switch from contemporary clothing, military garb, and Studio 54 chic to sauna towels, bathing suits, and Black Panther outfits, sometimes mixing in the same scene, as if the actors are in different shows. Northumberland wheels a news camera onto the set occasionally, preparing us for a live video feed that doesn’t happen; I wondered if there was a technical issue or it was done by choice. Jeanette Yew’s lighting keeps it mostly dark, although there are several moments when actors move around spotlights to shine on themselves or others, killing any pace. And “Sweet Dreams” upends the atmosphere more than once.
In a program note, CUNY English professor Mario DiGangi posits, “Why should we care about all these Yorks, Gloucesters, and Lancasters?”
As far as this production of Richard II is concerned, that’s a good question.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]