Richard III was a smash hit from the start. The Elizabethans loved it, and it was printed several times before the 1623 folio collection. Henceforth over the centuries the title role worked as a magnet on the greatest actors more strongly than any other Shakespearean part.

Nevertheless this early play is frankly apprentice work. Shakespeare was not yet in command of his craft. Here he was trying to out-Kyd Marlowe, but he could not match the variety and richness of Marlowe's Edward II. In the years immediately following, however, Shakespeare's skill advanced markedly, as evidenced by Richard II, his first really great serious drama. Richard III, the capstone of an historical tetralogy, is far inferior to the much lesser-known Richard II for many of the reasons that Henry V, capstone of his other historical tetralogy, falls far short of Henry IV.

Richard III is, except for Hamlet the longest of all the plays; and it is, unlike Hamlet, repetitious, monochromatic, unyielding, and actually quite shallow. It does not leave enough unsaid; in fact, again and again we are told what is going to happen, we see it happen, and then we are told what we have just seen.

A 'Star Vehicle'

Still, one can easily see why the main role has attracted so many players. (Kean, the foremost 19th-century Richard, started work on it at 13.) It is a "star" vehicle for virtuosity. Richard is not only an arch-villain; he is also a consummate actor himself, with an instinct for histrionics and theatricality. Like Iago (for which he served as a preliminary study), Richard takes as much delight in the efficacy of his acting techniques as in the evil deeds he commits (which include eleven murders).

There is no sense in joining the chorus of voices complaining that the Richard III of the play libels the historical model. The play's hero, destined to become Henry VII, is no more faithful to the laws of accurate portraiture. When art (even lesser art) and history collide, art very often wins out--and this is as it should be.

With all its faults, the play as Shakespeare fashioned it can be enormously effective in performance. We simply must not expect too much of it. The original title was The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. But for the work to emerge on stage as tragedy, it would require performances in the title role and surrounding parts of such delicate adjustment and balance as I can only barely conceive. I have never seen or read of such a production (Olivier's did not come close). No--why not admit it?--Richard III, like Titus Andronicus, is not a tragedy but a melodrama. For the Elizabethans it fulfilled the function that "horror movies" do in our culture.

Laying aside pretensions to tragedy, the American Shakespeare Festival is now offering a Richard III of strong impact. The resulting bloodthirsty and at times stomach-turning melodrama, under Allen Fletcher's direction, provides one of the most intriguing shows in the Festival's history.

No little credit goes to Tharon Musser's inspired lighting throughout. The show opens with Richard delivering his celebrated soliloquy in pitch darkness. Only as it continues do the lights come up to reveal a steeply raked stage with an oppressive, gray two-level set, and Richard (Douglas Watson), with a big cross hung about his hypocritical neck, sitting on the floor until he begins to crawl like an animal. Only gradually are we aware of his ugly visage, hunched back, deformed right hand, and a misshapen leg that necessitates the strapping on of an artificial foot.

No-one can accuse Watson of restraint in his portrayal. In the impossible scene where Richard woos Lady Anne over the corpse of her husband, he knocks her to the ground; when she spits in his face, he licks her saliva (Patricia Peardon's monotonous delivery is no help to this scene). At one point his malformed hand spastically grabs his cross and must be pried off with the other. While Hastings is being beheaded he gnaws on a chicken leg. After Tyrrel reports carrying out his killings as ordered, Richard puts on a brief weeping fit. And on the eve of battle he sits caressing his deformed leg with his deformed hand. Vocally, Watson does laudably on the whole, though he should not throw away such a crucial line as "I'm not in a giving vein today."

Hines Performs Well

The eventually disillusioned Duke of Buckminster, played with marvelous inflections by Patrick Hines, is the finest of the supporting cast. Margaret Phillips, lurking ominously on the periphery long before she speaks, is deeply penetrating as the widowed Queen Margaret. Terence Scammell is a strikingly handsome and clean-spoken Dorset; Tom Sawyer, a rich-voiced Clarence; John Devlin, a manly Hastings; and Rex Everhart, honing a dagger on his shoe, a memorable First Murderer. Jacqueline Brookes' Elizabeth, unimpressive in her earlier scenes, summons up the requisite power for the interview in which Richard seeks permission to wed her daughter.

Ghosts Staged Well

The play has been trimmed to a running-time of three hours and a half, with one intermission about two-thirds through. In the parade of murdered ghosts, most tellingly staged, the victims address Richard alone and all the balancing apostrophes to Richmond are omitted; these really ought to be restored.

Will Steven Armstrong has restricted himself to blacks, whites, and grays in his costumes--until the enthronement of Richard, where the eye is dazzled with blazing reds in front of a blood-red backdrop.

If you are not bent on tragedy and will accept first-rate blood-and-guts melodrama, this Richard III is for you.