Tony Church, Ssan Fleetwood, Ian Richardson, Robin Weatherall, Mike Gwilym. |
The Royal Shakespeare Company of England, which visited New York with some regularity in the 70s, usually included one of its dramatic
anthologies in its repertoire. The present one—which I've called, a
bit awkwardly, a “dramatic revue”—was arranged by leading player Ian Richardson
for a cast of four: himself, Tony Church, Susan Fleetwood, and Mike Gwilym, plus a musician.
Unlike earlier efforts in the genre, it dispensed with reading from selected
passages in favor of enacted scenes, albeit with scripts in hand to suggest the
incomplete nature of the theatrics involved.
The material, dealing with kingship, was drawn from
Shakespeare’s history plays and tragedies, and included bits from Henry V, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry VI, Richard III, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, and King John.
History predominated in Part One, tragedy in Part Two. The quartet of
players ranged through selections that John Simon found “obvious and
unimaginatively put together,” but that Edith Oliver called “just about perfect
and beautifully meshed.” “These four actors, she enthused, “did not simply
switch roles, they metamorphosed.”
The actors wore evening clothes and used a bare set
with several benches and chairs for variety in blocking. A red velvet curtain
hung at the rear. Only a skull and gold crown were used for props. The single other technical element of note was the running musical and sound effect
commentary provided from the side of the stage by musician Robin Weatherall.