It's been two and a half years since director Peter Sutton and the Jesus College Shakespeare Project finished the Bard's first great tetralogy of history plays, Henry VI parts i, ii and iii, plus Richard III. For four thrilling terms the Elizabethan dining hall rang with the clash of dynasties and roses, and a generation of students grew up with the roles they played, almost at the pace they were originally written.
It was thrilling stuff. But it was also Shakespeare in the foothills of his dramatic and poetic genius. Now, as we approach the midpoint of this epic, twelve-year endeavour, we have a new tetralogy, a newer (and older) history, and a playwright at the peak of his powers. Where the first 'usurpment'* was all about how the actions of kings affect the world around them, soaked in the kind of blood and gore that even the Davids Weiss and Benioff would aspire to, this later group - comprising Richard II, Henry IV parts i and ii, and Henry V - turns the focus inward, to the psychology of the monarch himself. Rather than a warning from history, they amount to a tragic, comic, action-packed analysis of the meaning of power, and how it affects those who wield it.
The first instalment, Richard II, is traditionally seen as the most demanding of these four. One of only two Shakespeare plays written entirely in verse, it's long, neatly avoids showing any battles (even a duel is nipped in the bud just before the combatants whip out their weapons), and features a central character who speaks six hundred lines of iambic pentameter. The
But they don't. In fact, they turn it into one of their greatest productions to date.
Sutton's companies have always been outstanding when it comes to verse-speaking, so Richard gives them full rein. Every line seems magically balanced between the rhythm of the poetry and the emotion of the character. The words are so clear, even John Gielgud would have twitched an eyebrow in appreciation. This goes equally across the board, from the feuding kings to the philosophical gardeners.
And added to that clarity are some of the most fully rounded, convincing, and frankly enjoyable, performances I've seen in this play outside of David Tennant. As Bolingbroke, Callum Beardmore couldn't be less like the glacier that (I've no doubt) one of his ancestors gave his name to. He burns with righteous indignation, he seethes with political jockeying, and, with his MAGA-like baseball cap, he has all the oratorical nous of a populist tyrant. He moves his troops around with the barest glance and nod, but it's enough. With the physical presence of an Elizabethan Stephen Graham, Beardmore has steadily grown as a Shakespearean actor over the last 18 months. He now has a range and subtlety, combined with gravitas, that tells the audience we are in the hands of a master.
On the other side of the Hollow Crown stands King Richard, in the form of Lam Guanxiong. Like Beardmore, he also appeared in the JCSP productions of Love's Labour's Lost and Romeo and Juliet. And like Beardmore, he has hit his stride at exactly the right time. The tragedy of Guanxiong's Richard is that he is relentlessly jovial. Even when callously stripping John of Gaunt's estate of all its riches moments after the old man's death ('So much for that. Now for our Irish wars') he does it with such carefree jollity that you can't help liking him even while detesting his behaviour. His inner struggle to hand over the crown to Bolingbroke is, again, comically flustered, but that serves only to heighten the pity of the moment. Richard is a role that can descend into wallowing self-absorption in the latter stages of the play. Guanxiong keeps him alive up to the moment of his death.
And that death is one of the moments that shows Peter Sutton's directorial (and editorial) skills are as sharp as ever. Rather than the somewhat ambiguous murder in the text, committed by a host of thugs led by someone we've never met before, Sutton has Bolingbroke hand a subtle knife to the would-be traitor Aumerle, who then stabs his friend and former liege in order to save his own skin. As an emendation, it's bold, clear and fully respectful of the critical history surrounding the play.
The opening is no less striking. Taking a cue from Ian McKellen's 1993 film of Richard III, Sutton starts proceedings with the killing of the Duke of Gloucester, the event that sets the entire history cycle in motion, but which is only referred to in the original script. A modern audience can't be expected to know about such details, so Sutton stages the murder before our eyes. And it's surely no coincidence that, when Richard finally meets his death, he falls in the exact place and bodily position as his uncle had in the opening scene. On top of that, the scene features Arthur Bellamy in the role of the unfortunate Duke. Bellamy is one of the JCSP's longest-serving and most talented collaborators. If this is his final appearance, it's a fittingly valedictory cameo.
The entire production is suffused with poise and confidence, and nowhere is this more evident than in the belligerent Percy family of Northumberland. Esther O'Neill and Izzy Goldberg (as Hotspur) have a sullen, Geordie frankness about them that makes them sound straight out of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Knowing that Hotspur will be back in a leading role next term as the foil to Prince Hal is a mouthwatering prospect. Goldberg looks like she's straining upon the leash already, and I look forward to the fireworks yet to come. Her blood-curdling scream marks the final moment of the performance. For the character it's a cry of rage, but for this production, it's a yell of total triumph.
* the collective noun for a group of Shakespeare history plays. Possibly.