Shakespeare Company takes on the tale of Richard III

Bruce Horak plays Richard III in a new production by the Shakespeare Company. (Photo courtesy Tim Nguyen)

The Shakespeare Company and Hit & Myth Productions are presenting Richard III, a drama about a king who turns out to be the ultimate unreliable narrator, whose chaotic reign leaves a trail of tears in the kingdom.

It's being directed by former Alberta Theatre Projects artistic director Vanessa Porteous, who spoke to CTV News via email about the production, which stars Bruce Horak as Richard III.

1. How did you adapt Richard III?

The version on stage at The Shakespeare Company is the real, original Richard III. All the parts of the story are there, and all the famous and beautiful speeches: 'Now is the winter of our discontent', 'Was ever woman in this humour wooed', even 'My kingdom for a horse'!

However, like all 21st century productions of the piece, which is Shakespeare’s fourth-longest script, we have edited to support momentum and drive, and to bring the running time in line with a modern audience’s expectations. Each of our two acts runs just over one hour.

In addition, this is only the second time in Canada, and one of a handful of times in the world, when a disabled actor has played the disabled character of Richard. Bruce Horak portrays Richard, white cane in hand, sharing Bruce's own disability, legal blindness. We’ve made a few subtle tweaks so the dialogue doesn’t contradict that interpretation.

But not as many as you’d think you’d have to. Bruce’s visual impairment lifts up many unexpected themes and motifs that were there in the original: the moral values we assign to light and shadow; the wilful, cruel blindness of the abled characters versus Richard's unsighted, amoral, but darkly accurate vision, and so on. You hear the text as if for the first time. It’s troubling, thrilling, and truly provocative. I’m confident Shakespeare would approve.

2. You have translated a lot of plays from French to English. Did you flex some of your translation muscles adapting Richard III?

Funny you should say that. I’m off to the Banff Playwrights Lab in two days to undertake my second French to English translation, and I have worked a lot in translation dramaturgy over the years. Knowing French (and Latin, and even Spanish) does give you an edge when it comes to understanding some of the words in the show that Shakespeare made up to entertain the listening ears of his audience back in the day, like "puissant" (powerful) "pursuivant" (a follower) and especially "peise" (to weigh down or press), which comes up a lot in the ghost scene, when from beyond the grave, Richard’s many victims literally try to weigh him down with guilty feelings so he loses the battle the next day. No spoilers!

Writing the adaptation felt like more like the film-writing I’ve been doing lately. I’ve got three short film-scripts under my belt: one made, one funded and in pre-production, and one for which I’m currently seeking financing. In film, you need to write all kinds of info onto the page that we often leave unsaid in theatre.

I really wanted the team to grok the point of view of this production. It’s an extremely contemporary take, all about the 0.01 per cent, fake news, why we’re so drawn to charmingly dishonest strongmen... I used my film-writing  chops to get that into the stage instructions in the adaptation, so everyone could see the direction we were taking. Cellphone pings, AR-16s, the works. It was very, very fun.

3. Why Richard III of all the Shakespeare shows?

I knew the piece would speak to our times, but wow, when I opened it up again I was startled at how up-to-the-minute Shakespeare’s 450-year-old political thriller is today. As prep, we watched a Netflix doc series called How to Become A Tyrant. It’s narrated by Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones).

Via the bios of six modern authoritarians,  he takes you step by step through all the things you need to do to destroy your society while climbing to the top: "Seize Power; Crush your Rivals; Control the Truth" and so on. It’s like a beat-by-beat scene breakdown of Richard’s approach in the show. Bruce Horak and I even joked that maybe watching the Netflix series late one night gave his character the idea for the plan that launches the story!

4. What can we learn from Richard III that we can put to use to understand modern political leaders who might also be unreliable narrators, so to speak?

In the past few years an expression has circulated on social media, born of wisdom from activists whose countries have fallen prey to authoritarianism: “Believe the dictator.” What’s so confounding about these anti-democratic personalities, who seem to be multiplying globally (Erdogan, Duderte, Putin, Lukhashenko, Trump, al-Assad, Maduro, Marcos Jr…) is they lie to us so openly. They dare us to call out their venality, corruption, and ultimately, violence. So few stand up to them until it’s too late.

We need to step up. Support activists, join marches, write letters, vote, get into it. The press has to rejig its tendency to draw false equivalencies and openly point out lies. We also have to understand our own complicity in injustice at home and abroad, see how we benefit, and choose to act differently. We need to stop watching from the sidelines.

For me, the play is as much an indictment of our own complicity, how we act on base interests and petty resentments, as it is a portrait of the unforgettable malevolent anti-hero of the title. As deposed Queen Margaret warns Lady Buckingham: "Take heed of yonder dog!/ Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,/ His venom tooth will rankle to the death./ Have naught to do with him. Beware of him."

Richard III runs through April 29 at Vertigo Studio Theatre. For tickets and info, go here.