JACKSON–Often, plays presented in the summer are light fares meant for tourists, day trippers and families. Summer stock theaters are known to focus on musicals, comedies and farces. Not so the Michigan Shakespeare Festival, which is pairing its leading comedy As You Like It with the intellectual and heavily political Richard II.

This is a play for die-hard Shakespeare fans, historians and political scientists. It’s a little-done history that is the prequel to the two Henry IV plays that the Michigan Shakespeare Festival combined and presented last year. It opens and closes with murder and in between are two and a half hours of intense politics, speeches and war-making.

In this history, the young Richard II is beset my nobles and relatives who would help influence his reign, either protecting him from treasons or encouraging him in his warlike ways. There are early political accusations that lead to duel and then showcase Richard’s methods of governing. He proceeds to make rash political decisions that lead to an uprising against him by the Lord whom he exiled before seizing his lands and goods.

The Michigan Shakespeare Festival helpfully provides a family tree and a synopsis to give the audience some of the information that the original Elizabethan audiences would have had as common knowledge. It helps to sort out who all the uncles are and their relation to the young king.

Robert Kauzlaric, one of the Festival’s artistic associates and a frequent director—including of this year’s As You Like It, plays the title role in a rare appearance on the Festival stage. He puts in a multi-layered performance of this talkative king who first ascended to the throne when he was 9 and still bears all the impetuousness of youth. Kauzlaric’s young king is never regal, but is assured in his own power and his expectation that he will be obeyed, even when his commands are thwarted. He claims a divine right to the throne and trusts in that providence to protect him even against his bad decisions.

There is an arc for this spoiled king, and Kauzlaric makes the journey with deliberation, showing a range of great emotion starting with bemusement and traveling through arrogance, excitement, celebration, fear, anger, despair, love, loss and even contentment. He handles well the multiple monologues that Shakespeare thrusts upon this character. Rarely does Richard engage in extended back and forth with others on stage, most of his action consists of long speeches with the occasional bout of intense listening to the monologues of others. In both roles, Kauzlaric creates a Richard who is interesting and who commands attention.

Alan Ball, a Festival artistic associate, and Tobin Hissong, new to the Festival this year, play the three uncles to the young king. They are the older men whose wisdom is neglected and whose position in court is precarious as the young king would sooner listen to young ruffians such as Bush (Eric Eilerson), Bagot (Ian Geers) and Green (Michael Phillip Thomas) who are his drinking buddies and encourage him in his reckless choices. Ball and Hissong bring a gravity to their roles. They are men who are devoted to England and the proper governing of the realm.

Ball is the angry John of Gaunt, a man whose bitterness first begins to show when his son, Bolingbroke, is exiled from the country. From his wheelchair, he delivers a blistering assessment of the realm and takes the king to task, imploring him to change his ways. Ball is ever a strong presence in the Festival, and he provides balance to Richard’s youthful negligence. When he comes back later as a gardener in a brief scene, he sports a low-class accent and takes on an all-new persona.

Hissong portrays the heaviness of loyalty to the crown and the tough decisions that come along with it when faced with overwhelming odds. His Duke of York is a man of principles and Hissong displays the courage and compromise necessary for a man thrust into royal politics and the struggle for a throne and a crown.

Richard’s nemesis, Henry Bolingbroke, is played by Robert McLean and he creates a young man who is the diametric opposite to his king. Where Richard is insolent, Henry is intense and honor-bound. Where Richard’s approach to conquest and war is eager and pursued with gleeful excitement, Henry’s is sober and commanding. McLean plays up the differences between the two men, creating a contrast that is especially powerful when the two men meet late in the play in the royal throne room for the final determination of power.

This is mostly a man’s play, with all the action being determined by the men in charge or wanting to be in charge. However, there are two particularly strong women in the play who have their own parts to play. Janet Haley, this year’s poster child and mainstay on the Michigan Shakespeare Festival stage, is Richard’s aunt, wife to the principled York and mother of a treasonous son. She is devoted to family, something seen early on in her interactions with Gaunt, but really coming out late in the play when she is forced to plead for her son’s life on her knees. Even kneeling, Haley is a powerful force, one no ruler can resist. She is eloquent in her son’s defense and creates stakes that are high for the audience on behalf of a character that is not otherwise thrust into the limelight.

The other strong woman in the show is Anu Bhatt’s Queen Isabella. Director Jan Blixt gives her unspoken moments with the king early on that show her influence in court and her connection with her husband. From there Bhatt creates a chemistry between the two and displays a devotion to her husband that withstands all the challenges it faces. Her loneliness and heartbreak is touching and Bhatt underlines the fate and loss that Richard experiences.

Blixt makes several choices to bring this production into the present, evoking current headlines such as the British prime minister’s overturning of the cabinet and installation of new ones, the rashness and isolating nature of American electoral politics and even the most recent coup attempt in Turkey. She starts by calling upon Costume Designer Suzanne Hopgood to put her men in suits with prep school badges worn on their coats and the women in modern dresses. They’re modern, but still mostly formal. Only those who are outside the realm of nobility discard the formality of suits for casual dress.

Blixt also directs her cast to move in more modern ways, affecting modern mannerisms and deliveries of speech. This brings the complicated cast of characters closer to the audience, making them more relatable and casting the spotlight on the political nature of the play. It’s a choice that is effective for this play, making it more accessible as a heavy history filled with narrative.

Jeromy Hopgood’s set is a simple one with a movable bench creating throne rooms, castles and private rooms with a quick move across the stage. A large set piece in the back warns of the decline of a realm while hanging stained glass windows evoke the religious mandate frequently referred to in the show.

“Richard II” is devoted to the details and this production commits to telling a historical tale in which a careless ruler must face the consequences of his actions and his disregard for the conventions of the time. It can get heavy at times, a likely reason it is so rarely done. But for fans of Shakespeare or of history, it is a rare opportunity to witness the struggle between forces of a kingdom as it must choose the type of rule it will have.

Click here for show days, times and details.