San Francisco’s Magic Theatre is not known for producing Shakespeare. The theater was created for, and always has been, a playwright’s theater dedicated to world premieres.
But this “Richard II” is in fact a new play of sorts, by longtime Magic Theatre affiliate and nationally prominent playwright Naomi Iizuka.
It’s part of Play On Shakespeare!, a national project established in 2015 that commissions new versions of Shakespeare plays from esteemed playwrights. The guidelines: Playwrights don’t change or edit anything. Rather, they “translate” the text for contemporary audiences.
Although Iizuka’s “Richard II” has been published and received a few earlier productions, this version is updated, further condensed and, according to the program, shaped for this stellar company.
Running a compact, intermission-less 95 minutes, it is beautifully acted by a diverse cast of seven, with women playing some of the male roles—including Jeunée Simon as a riveting King Richard—and directed with nary a false move by Karina Gutiérrez.
From the moment the play opens, on a stage that consists almost entirely of Tanya Orellana’s sharply vertical set of bleachers that the characters must ascend and descend (as, just so, their fortunes rise and fall), everything instantly becomes clear. The characters introduce themselves and set the plot in motion:
“Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby/Am I, who, ready here, do stand in arms/
To prove, by God’s grace and my body’s valour, That my foe Thomas Mowbray,
Duke of Norfolk,/Is a foul, malevolent traitor …” declares Henry Bolingbroke.
It is up to the King to arbitrate the conflict between the two. When he suddenly decides to banish them both from the kingdom —Mowbry (Ogie Zulueta) permanently, Bolingbroke for six years — things get complicated. Bolingbroke intends to return promptly to England and claim the King’s lands and crown for himself, whereby he will become Henry IV. Many of Richard’s allies defect to Bolingbroke’s camp. (As in so many plays these days, the downward trajectory of a powerful, self-aggrandizing figure feels contemporary.)
At the center of the drama are two foes: On one hand, there’s Richard, whose many impassioned soliloquies, as he faces his missteps and his own imminent downfall, have a despair and a belated self-reckoning that call to mind some of King Lear’s agonized speeches.
On the other, the self-assured, ascending Bolingbroke. The two actors, in their scenes together as well in their soliloquies and dialogue with other characters, are never less than layered and complex.
Simon’s Richard is impulsive, inventive, spontaneous, and an all-too-human foil for Juan Amador’s self-controlled Bolingbroke.
And in every moment, the other actors—most of whom play multiple roles, transitioning seamlessly from one to another—are equally multi-layered. That goes for Kina Kantor as Bolingbroke’s terrified, vulnerable queen; Mia Tagano, whose comic sensibility shines in small roles; Nora El Samahy’s intense, rigid Duke of York; and, as the Earl of Northumberland and other roles, Catherine Castellanos, whose quiet power and interior life are always astonishing.
Gutiérrez spiffs up the production with videos by Joan Osato that play out on the inner and outer stage walls, sometimes to electrifying effect, other times merely distracting, and ultimately not necessary. But the music (Christopher Sauceda, sound design) during swift, economical scene changes is thrilling. And the blocking on the narrow stage—including at times, an almost slow-motion crossover walk below the stage—is mesmerizing.
It’s nice for scholars and theater nerds to have access to Play On’s 21st-century Shakespeare script, and quite exciting to see the way brilliant acting and direction can bring scripts like these to theatrical life.
“Richard III” continues through Sept. 8 at the Magic Theatre, Building D, Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina Blvd., San Francisco. Tickets are $30 to $70 at magictheatre.org.
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