One of the first things you have to think about with your director and your costume designers is what exactly is the deformity that Richard has. And there are some famous productions where it is all about the deformity. Antony Sher's "bottled spider" inspired silhouette led him to settle on two walking crutches, which he goes in-depth about in his book Year of the King. It's a fascinating read. A few years ago, Branagh had a giant contraption on his body in a production. Olivier's giant hunchback also springs easily to mind when thinking about this character.
Steph and I were both of the same mind (no surprise, we almost always are) that we didn't want it to be a play about the deformity. We are also very sensitive to the fact that I am an able-bodied actor portraying somebody who is famously disabled, and we wanted the play to be about how his self-view and the scorns of enemies has shaped him into the monster he becomes, and not his disability.
But you have to address it. (I suppose you could ignore it, but I couldn't wrap my brain around how that was even possible). So I started experimenting with how I could move to honor all of the requirements of the play. He has to be a skilled soldier. Perhaps if we were doing this play in-doors at an intimate space, you could have him stationary and the world revolve around him, but that won't play in a park. So, the necessity that I be well able to move quickly enough to make long entrances and exits was also a consideration. I also drew from Benedick Cumberbatch's Richard in "Henry VI." (I didn't watch his Richard, because when I play a role I don't want to be influenced by other people's performances. He is spectacular in Henry VI though, so I am definitely going to watch it sometime after we close). His limp is more pronounced than I felt comfortable doing with our multi-tiered set, but I liked his use of his left arm. I had been excluding it completely, but watching him fight with it in limited motion helped me to visualize how I could use it.
It's still a work in progress, as is this whole show. Hell, this entire thing is process in a way that no other production ever has been in my career. Our costume designer after seeing the rehearsals all week said to me on opening: "Well you found some new things!" I did. And the more comfortable I get with lines, the more I'll be able to play. I'm a quick study, fortunately, because if not I couldn't have opened this show with such limited rehearsal time. I'm really looking forward to next weekend because I expect the show to take a big jump forward as we all settle into it. Just in time to close.
I do want to talk about the fights a bit. I am the fight choreographer, and I love staging and performing fights onstage! Love it! The older I get, the more I like staging fights for others and figuring out how to limit what I actually have to do...because I'm not one of these kids anymore. My mind still thinks I am, but my body is starting to betray me. That's honestly one of the reasons that I wasn't ready to play this role a few years ago. I was still very sound of body. But since 2017, I've had chronic neck and back pain. I spent most of last year in bed with Covid and the long haul symptoms after. So all of that has gone into the physicality of this character and how I fight.
The fights are pretty cool! We had limited rehearsal, so we had to make them both safe and exciting in a very short time. And we have very well trained fighters on the stage, so that was very helpful. The fight between Ratcliffe and Richmond is really awesome because they are so good! The fights I'm in are interesting because I fight with a different style than anyone else onstage because of the limited use of my left arm and my halting gait. And I learned from my fight mentor Jason Armit that changing fight partners during fights leads to exciting action in the minds of the audience. So, that's how I built the fights. And I leaned heavily on the actors, all of whom are now younger and stronger than I am and more capable to do the heavy lifting. I mean, I still acquit myself well...don't get me wrong, but Aaron, Mateo, and Azim have the stuff!
Ok, that's this installment of "cramming a summer of blogs into a week." Hopefully you'll stay tuned for more and that this is interesting to anybody out there besides me.
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