Read John Monaghan’s review of Shakespeare Royal Oak’s Richard III, for FREEP
In typical stagings of Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” Richard is a hunchbacked villain who’s so grotesque that dogs bark at the sight of him. Between the famous first lines of the play (“Now is the winter of our discontent …”) and his final utterance on the battlefield, the scheming Richard plots to ascend the English throne and leaves a trail of corpses in his wake.
Michael Brian Ogden’s Richard in the current Shakespeare Royal Oak staging by Water Works Theatre is a slightly different animal, especially in the physicality department. Though he wears a metal leg brace and has a withered left arm, he performs one-handed push-ups and is usually found onstage equipped with a sword, dagger and a shield bearing his family crest. He’s ready for both physical and mental challenges. Think Charlton Heston over Laurence Olivier.