As the somewhat tragic figure at the centre of HBO’s Succession, Kendall Roy–son of aging Waystar RoyCo magnate Logan Roy–has invited many comparisons to the eponymous hero of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. First performed during the latter years of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, at a time when her lack of heir placed succession at the core of a cultural upheaval, Hamlet explores relationships between fathers, sons, and sovereignty. Like Hamlet, Succession’s Kendall Roy both idolizes his father while simultaneously straining to wrench himself from Logan’s influence. Where in Hamlet, idolization manifests in the pursuit of revenge, Kendall’s idolization manifests in usurpation. Several times throughout the course of the show Kendall, far from being spurred on by his father’s ghost, tries to take his place as CEO and oust him from Waystar RoyCo.
And there’s the rub, as Hamlet would say: the usurpation, which begs Succession’s comparison to another Shakespearean tale. The aesthetics of Nicholas Hytner’s Richard II, currently playing at the Bridge Theatre, provokes its comparison to Succession. Crisp suits, sterile sets, a score of classical piano with a hip bassy twist. The Bridge stage–long, thin, raised at the centre of a circle of seats– exhibited a deeply sad piece with moments of high stakes hilarity pulled languidly from its throat. Though Succession’s Kendall Roy is the usurper, and not the usurped, his erratic, desperate fragility (and cocaine use) clearly inspired this most recent iteration of King Richard II. The desperate cling to power, mournfulness, and perseveration surrounding the loss of it were aspects of Succession, (and thereafter this production) that I deeply enjoyed. As I will explore more below, these aesthetics were ultimately a means to an end, linking this staging to a larger genre of high stakes political drama and emotional intrigue, and connecting the historical to the contemporary. The most valuable aspect the production gained from its Succession-ness were the razor sharp beats of humor cutting through the emotional intensity of the piece. The most significant of these beats occurred in the abdication scene, when Richard II is at long last deposed by Bolingbroke, a scene so charged it was censored in the sixteenth century when the play was first performed.
Richard begs of attendants a mirror:
An if my word be sterling yet in England,
Let it command a mirror hither straight,
That it may show me what a face I have
Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.(4.1.275-278)
However, it is not until Bolingbroke reaffirms the command (‘Go, some of you, and fetch a looking-glass’ (4.1.279)) that a looking glass is fetched for Richard, who remarks mournfully on his visage before smashing the mirror on his forehead.
An audible gasp of unbridled shock rippled through the audience as Richard whispered, ‘For there it is, cracked in an hundred shivers / …How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face’ (4.1.300-302). Yet not five minutes earlier, as he extended his long arm to Bolingbroke, the circlet of his hollow crown grasped tightly in offering, that the audience had laughed at his repeated hesitance to part with it. That the production found these beats of hilarity amongst moments of the deepest malaise, employing the perfectly calibrated performance of Jonathan Bailey to bring them to the forefront, was a feat of genius.
Readers of this periodical, real life friends, or acquaintances I’ve annoyed at pub outings all know how I feel about modernized aesthetics in Shakespeare. I acknowledge the ability of aesthetics to more easily connect modern audiences to a story whose language and context is wholly anachronistic. Messages, after all, are easier to convey when wrapped in a familiar package, and contemporary aesthetics may well be Shakespeare’s shiny new Trojan horse. During the interval of Richard II, I overheard a discussion outlining the positives of Hynter’s staging–they felt the aesthetics made Shakespeare fade into the background, got him out of our faces, like the play’s Shakespearean nature was an obstacle, not an asset, to the production’s message. Though, as a Shakespearean, I was scandalized by this, I’m also pushed to humor it. Pragmatically, it’s largely a safe bet to adhere to contemporary aesthetics, and, if we are to build a critical conversation off of this overheard discourse, then the aesthetics of this Richard II work beautifully. Familiarizing the play with Succession-esque elements helps to outline what the production hopes audiences will take from it. (put a pin in this)
Writing half a century after Shakespeare, Thomas Hobbes theorized that humans created an artificial body (civilization) in order to protect the natural body (ourselves). The sovereign–or Leviathan–is the soul of society’s body, animating and giving life to every function. The frontispiece of his great work even depicts the sovereign (wielding a sword and mace, items Richard also attributes to the display of kingly power) constructed of the people. Though Hobbes disagreed that the sovereign was divinely ordained, theorizing that the state was made by man and for man, this is still an immense amount of power to give to one person. What if they are undeserving? What if the soul animating society is at odds with what that society needs to accomplish, rotting it from the inside, impeding its function? Most importantly, how possible, then, is it to strip the attribution of such power away? Generally, the traditional interpretation of the play’s themes have followed this line of thinking, looking something like: Can rulers ever be stripped of their ordained sovereignty because they’re not what’s “best” for the people?
Even after being deposed, Richard cannot be divested of his sovereign right. In one of his most famous monologues (large swaths of which were confusingly absent from this production), he remarks:
Now, mark me how I will undo myself.
I give this heavy weight from off my head
And this unwieldy scepter from my hand,
The pride of kingly sway from out my heart.
…
Long mayst thou live in Richard’s seat to sit,
And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit.
God save King Henry, unkinged Richard says,
And send him many years of sunshine days.
What more remains?(4.1.212-215 / 4.1.227-231)
Richard outlines how, even if he takes the crown off his head, hands his scepter over, and abdicates to his usurper, Bolingbroke…even if he is murdered and placed into a grave, the throne is still Richard’s seat. No matter what he does, how far he goes (‘What more remains?’) or how long Bolingbroke reigns, it is Richard to whom sovereignty belongs.
However, Hynter’s Richard II boasts a more unconventional thematic takeaway, one which, despite the play’s aesthetic cohesion and allusions to other pieces of media, is harder to pin down. Jonathan Bailey’s Richard, unsympathetic, oscillating in his turn between unhinged and dainty, seemingly struggles to cling to his authority. In what turns out to be by far the most well executed scene in this production, Richard’s dying uncle (and father to the exiled Bolingbroke), John of Gaunt, mourns what England has become under the rule of Richard II. ‘This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land… / Is now leased out—I die pronouncing it—’ he laments, ‘That England that was wont to conquer others / Hath made a shameful conquest of itself’ (2.1.63-65 / 2.1.71). In Hynter’s production, this powerful monologue is delivered with stoicism by a wheelchair-bound Nick Sampson. A hospital bed has been hoisted from the depths of the stage, adorned by a sterile bedside table upon which rests a bushel of grapes.
While not my desired delivery of this famous monologue, there is something to be said of Gaunt’s quiet power as he, close to death, sitting in a wheelchair in his dressing gown and slippers, delivers a quiet and scathing rebuke of Richard’s reign. He exchanges the wheelchair for a walker to look Richard in the eye, and, his authority so utterly supplanted by the frail John of Gaunt, Richard’s only recourse is to kick the walker from under Gaunt, a desperate and wretched physical display of authority. Indeed, Richard only regains command of the room once Gaunt is wheeled out and pronounced dead, at which point the King immediately signs deeds to gain possession of the decedent’s wealth–using his hospital bed as a hard surface to make signatures, before stretching out indifferently on the deathbed and plucking the grapes from the bedside table for his afternoon snack.
The apathy, fragility, shock, and hilarious incredulity of this scene was a genius I wish the rest of the play had built on. These flashes of genius are scattered throughout the production, but remain disjointed by the lion’s share of the play. Bailey’s strong performance throughout gave the audience a sense that charisma and a quick wit are all his Richard has to rely on, and that no natural sense of empathy, compassion, or leadership can justify his role as a ruler. However, the rest of the actors can’t match Bailey’s tense, emotionally rich performance. Only the conflicted and changeable Duke of York, played by Michael Simpkins, came close to the level of emotional complexity given to us by Bailey.
The Bridge stage’s use of levels, hoisting and lowering sets and scenes taking place crouched down or in pits was inspired, its panopticonic nature as a theatre-in-the-round enhancing Richard II’s themes of mingling public and private. As Bolingbroke’s forces close in on Richard, there’s a very real sense of surveillance and paranoia that playing to an audience on all sides–and being unable to hide–lends to the story. The use of passports as gauges, and the effect, in high stakes scenes, of having characters throw down their passports, material signs of nationality within a play steeped in patriotism, citizenship, and exile, was an amazing use of imagery.
However, the rest of the staging was not so inspired. Particularly jarring was the use of a canon launcher at the end of the first half with a hidden camera inside: when pointed directly at Richard, it broadcast his image live on small screens throughout the theatre. Though this helped audience members underneath the mezzanine to see him as he shouted down to Bolingbroke, I couldn’t help but feel there was a better way to achieve this visibility. The launcher itself, taking up most of the stage, felt like a Chekhov’s gun which never went off. There was no real point to it. The projections themselves were integrated terribly into the production– the execution felt nothing but utilitarian, an afterthought devised only for practicality. Ending the play with a lone gurney on the stage likewise felt uninspired. Was this the image of Richard II, I thought, that they wanted us to leave us with?
The cuts made to the script also bothered me. It seems there is a recent trend of making significant cuts to female roles in Shakespeare plays. Queen Isabel, Richard’s wife, was absolutely butchered. A silent bystander at the beginning of the play, then rising from the stage surrounded in an excess of designer shopping bags, appearing mournful, before professing her love to an arrested Richard and refusing to flee to France–her characterization was inconsistent because she had nothing to work with, all but one scene of dialogue was gone. My plea to London theatres: please stop doing this! These women enhance Shakespeare’s storytelling, please stop clipping their wings. Moreover, cutting the majority of Richard’s hauntingly beautiful monologue in act five–a meditation on temporality, on the ticking clock of his life before the string of his is cut–I take as a personal offence.
Ultimately, though I enjoyed many aspects of Nicholas Hynter’s staging of Richard II at the Bridge Theatre, perhaps the most accurate (and concise) review is that of my friend Eduardo: ‘Bailey is good. The play is heavily and weirdly edited. The staging and costumes are uninspired. I’ll forget all about it in a month.’
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