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'Richard II' Has Highly Engrossing King

AMERICAN SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL: I

Make no mistake: Madden's performance is engrossing throughout, wrongheaded though it is at times. Still, the evidence is clear that he has the technique to do just about anything he's told to do. Shakespeare needed Richard as preparation for Hamlet; reversing the process, Madden brought to Richard the experience of having rather impressively played Hamlet at the Phoenix Theatre in New York in 1961. The blame for his current shortcomings must be laid almost entirely to the director, who has, I may say, done most of the rest of his work here quite laudably.

The vital role of Bolingbroke is in the hands of another Festival newcomer, Charles Cioffi. Though I saw Madden's Hamlet, I've never seen Cioffi before. It is a pleasure to report that he is properly robust, appropriately broadshouldered, and possessed of a splendidly trained voice. He delivers the "sun sets weeping" speech beautifully--the only trouble is that Shakespeare wrote it for another character.

Cioffi's performance compares favorably with the fine one given by Philip Bosco in the Festival's 1962 production of the play. It is not Cioffi's fault that the balance between Richard and Bolingbroke is upset, and that aspects of the latter's character are missing; for director Kahn has trimmed the text to three acts of 45 minutes each, and in the process omitted the entire Aumerle conspiracy with Boling-broke's attendant clemency.

Although Gaunt dies rather early in the play, Josef Sommer makes him unforgettable. Gaunt's great panegyrie on England ("this scept'red isle") usually emerges as a one-key aria. But Sommer takes his time with it, carefully shapes its rhythms and dynamics, and lovingly introduces modulations--so that the whole thing comes across as a miniature scena with dramatic form. I have never heard it done better.

Stefan Gierasch brings warmth to the Duke of York, but swallows some of his words. Richard Mathews' Mowbray sputters and lacks resonance, and Rex Robbins' Northumberland is colorless throughout. Thomas Ruisinger makes an admirably intense Bishop of Carlisle, but he ought to know that the meter requires that "Hereford" be disyllabic, not trisyllabic. Of the women--who are peripheral in this play--Zoe Kamitses' Duchess of Gloucester remains in the memory for her one powerful scene in the first act. John Duffy's fanfares and Jennifer Tipton's lighting serve the play capably.

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Any production of this work, however, stands or falls on its Richard. This one stands--despite the reservations I have voiced about Donald Madden. He merits your attention while I am still waiting for the Richard that I fancy in my mind's eye and ear.

(Ed. Note--"Richard II" plays through September 15 in alternation with "As You Like It," "Love's Labour's Lost," and Shaw's "Androcles and the Lion," which will be reviewed in subsequent issues. The drive to the picturesque grounds on the Housatonic River takes about two and a half hours via the Massachusetts Turnpike, Interstate 91, and the Connecticut Turnpike to Exit 32 or 31. Performances tend to begin promptly at 2:30 and 8:30 in the air-conditioned Festival Theatre. There are free facilities for picnickers on the premises.)

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