Richard III (review)

 Spoilers ahoy!

Fessing up--Richard III is my favorite play by William Shakespeare.  So I have seen many, many, many productions including the famous film versions starring Lawrence Olivia and Ian McKlellan respectively as hunchbacked king.  A Noise Within's production of this play, directed by Guillermo Cienfuegos and starring Ann Noble in the title role, frankly is the best live action version of it I myself have ever seen.

A big factor amid all this is the cast, which encompasses over thirty characters (this is an early play and is technically a bit rough around the edges).  Most versions I've seen have proven hard pressed to get enough uniform quality in the cast.  Not this time!  Particular standouts include Lynn Robert Berg as the Duke of Buckingham, Veralyn Jones as the Duchess of York, Samuel Garnett as Lord Hastings,  Sean Umeda as Catesby, and Erika Soto as Lady Anne (a criminally under used character, but like I said, this was an early play).

With the kind of wild sets and costumes and lights (as well as music) to really go to town, this Richard is set in some version of the 1970s, and with that in mind some wonderfully weird details emerge.  Like the startling fashion range, up to and including the strangely groovy look and body language of our central character.  Likewise the women become over time more and more frumpy, not because they are but it seems natural in such an England dominated by a Duke then King who kept remind me of the Kray Brothers in some odd way, or the character Scorpio in Dirty Harry.  Men as malevolent peacocks seemed part of the "look" here.  Likewise one could see a deliberate attempt to make our hero Richmond (Wesley Guimarães) as least posh, least upper class and least preening as feasible.  It helps make him an individual, rather than a cookie cutter Prince Charming as he is often portrayed.   

That to me highlights was is best about this specific Richard III, how every character comes across as an individual, with individual senses of humor, sources of confusion, rhythms and world views.  Nothing generic here.  I offer much credit to the entire cast in that regard--Lesley Fera, Trisha Miller, Alex Neher, Tony Pasqualini, Randolph Thompson, Brendan Burgos, Vic Crusaos, Dominick Jaramillo, and Micah Lanfer.

Here we have one of Bill's most famous and most challenging plays, a popular show with a great villain--the Hannibal Lecter of Tudor Theatre, although we only do Shakespeare's version.  The reasons are many, but the big one is that Richard in this play is a human being, not a cardboard cutout of some storybook bad guy.  

And the result makes this probably my second favorite I've ever seen at A Noise Within!

Richard III plays Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays @ 7:30 p.m. / Saturdays & Sundays @ 2 p.m. through March 8, 2026 at A Noise Within, 3352 E Foothill Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91107.