Belfast International Arts Festival 2024: The Tragedy of Richard III

Zak Ford-Williams in The Tragedy of Richard III. Credit, Melissa Gordon

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The play’s the thing. So sayeth Hamlet in, eh, Hamlet. Yet as Hamlet rightly knew, sometimes the players are also the thing. As is the case with Lyric Theatre’s unique production of The Tragedy of Richard III. Inspired by a throwaway comment by Michael Patrick when first going public earlier this year with his diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease. A comment about playing Richard III that saw the always up for it Jimmy Fay at The Lyric contact Patrick saying, ‘let’s see if we can make that work?’ So began a process resulting in The Tragedy of Richard III, adapted by Patrick and his brother in arms Oisín Kearney, in which Patrick plays Richard and Kearney directs. A production that risks being as complete a car crash as you can possibly get without actually crashing a car. Yet like a car crash, it leaves you stunned and reeling. Placing death and disability front and centre in this brave, bold, heartfelt interrogation.

Let’s first address the elephants in the room, because there’s a herd of them. Michael Patrick doesn’t have a manageable or survivable disability, he has a fatal disability. Kearney and Patrick openly state this but neither attempts to sentimentalise or emotionally manipulate for easy sympathy. To them, Richard III isn’t a gimmick and Patrick is not his condition. He’s raging against the dying of the light so that the light might shine more brightly and challenge expectations of what’s theatrically and socially possible. This informs everything from the creation to the framing to the staging to the plays reception. There’s no point pretending otherwise, or judging it by any standards other than those it sets for itself. For this is an attempt to break new ground, and such attempts are often messy, often the usual rules don’t always apply even as standards of excellence do. Also, the role of Richard III is rotated between Patrick and disabled actor Zak Ford-Williams who has Cerebral Palsy so, like an ANU production, whatever you see might be vastly different to what someone else got to see. I saw Ford-Williams’ performance, but Patrick’s shadow loomed over everything, especially the final, devastating coup de théâtre. Still, Ford-Williams has a manageable disability so how death and dying are being beautifully addressed throughout will likely play different to Patrick’s performance. Yet if Patrick brings something Ford-Williams does not, including, by all accounts, an older, drier Northern Irish sense of humour, it’s equally true that Ford-Williams reveals things Patrick does not. Also, it doesn’t take much to make an imaginative connection between Ford-Williams and Patrick.

The Tragedy of Richard III. Credit Melissa Gordon

That out of the way, Richard III sees Kearney beginning as he means to continue. Putting disability front and centre with deaf performer Paula Clarke, hugely captivating as the assassin Tyrell, signing to the audience and realising they haven’t a clue. The distance between the able bodied and disabled lived experience simply and effectively acknowledged in this shared space. Clarke asks for an announcement outlining some basics about the story, setting up the Lancaster and York families vying for the throne of England so we're all on the same page. Getting us on the same page returned to many times from performers speaking from the auditorium, direct address breaking the fourth wall, to a clever rallying call for Richard to take the throne.

Arriving onstage in a wheelchair, now begins the winter of Richard’s discontent. The operative word being winter. For Kearney and Patrick’s adaptation foregrounds that life is not the only journey. Death, or dying, is also a journey. Richard, entering into his final season, feeling he has unfinished business. Feeling his life half lived, his destiny unfulfilled, robbed of what could and should have been. Some resign themselves to it, some look to go out swinging. Some do so by becoming heroes. Richard decides to become the villain. As familiar monologues and scenes are made unfamiliar, tone and interpretations become transmuted. Shakespeare repositioned and made new yet again. In contrast with Niall McKeever’s set and costumes which might look new, but they’re not. McKeever’s backstage set and hybrid outfits creating less an imaginative or modern space so much as a space for the imagination to engage with. Ably supported by Jonathan M. Daly’s superb light design, exploding with sheets of colour in key moments, yet otherwise unobtrusive. Austin Gallagher’s percussive rhythms, with a variety of drums used throughout, looking like band rehearsals but sounding like battle cries, a military march, a raging heartbeat. The whole collectively looking like a student production of Our Town done on the cheap right after a frat party.

Michael Patrick in The Tragedy of Richard III. Credit, Melissa Gordon

Against which Ford-Williams, looking like the boy who would be king, initially makes for a tough ask; the young actor’s youth playing against him. Reinforced by Allison Harding’s defiant Duchess of York looking like she just stepped out of Alice’s Wonderland, and an excellent Charlotte McCurry as Queen Elizabeth, dressed like a Goth bride on the way to Blitz in ’79. Both characters strong, powerful women looking like they’re bossing the man-child around. Compounded by Patrick McBearty’s opportunistic Buckingham, whose machinations suggest Richard as a weak willed puppet king. And so it goes until intermission when, finally having attained the throne, absolute power begins to corrupt Richard absolutely. So begins the end. With a second corruption starting with something as insignificant and innocuous as a cough. The last journey commencing just as life is being finally lived.

You might well forget Patrick and Ford-Williams rotating roles post-intermission for wondering if Ford-Williams has an evil twin. A gloriously transformed Richard post-intermission sees Ford-Williams give a monstrously strong performance as the man made monster, rising in viciousness even as his body is hurriedly declining. No longer do you doubt the power or the danger. Nor do Michael Curran-Dorsano’s Hastings, Chris McCurry’s Stanley or Ciaran O’Brien’s Clarence. The cast, collectively, under Kearney’s direction, less a cohesive Shakespearian ensemble so much as shattered fragments of styles when it comes to delivering the bards lines. Some, like Charlotte McCurry, tearing up the stage with diva like dominance, setting the words alight. Others, like Ghaliah Conroy as Lady Anne and later Richmond, not always looking comfortable despite having a strong stage presence. Ford-Williams landing somewhere in between. Raging war on the tyrant time, facing ghosts of murders past, Richard’s inner strength and fading energy is palpably felt. The final, breathtaking moments allowing poetry replace play in one final address to the audience. Ford-Williams’ soft spoken tenderness catching you with a gut punch. This young man. This boy. Speaking to our fleeting, glorious, journeys. Rarely will you experience a moment of such poignant and profound immediacy.

The Tragedy of Richard III. Credit, Melissa Gordon

While Kearney and Patrick’s adaption remains true to Shakespeare’s play, you could make the case that a little more abridging wouldn’t have gone amiss, along with a little more playing at the boundaries of poetry to further explore their chosen emphasis. Still, this is unquestionably a creditable Richard III on the terms with which we usually recognise him. Like Deirdre Kinahan’s An Old Song, Half Forgotten, the performer (Bryan Murray) and their disability might seem to be the focus, but there’s bigger fish being fried. We are all alive and dying. We are all disabled. It’s just a question of time and degree. None of us get out alive and none of us know how much or how little time we have. Best use that time to the fullest. With The Tragedy of Richard III Patrick, Kearney and all involved most certainly do. Theatrically, it’s still a car crash at times; messy, awkward, both a little too much and not enough. But like the Tibetan Book of The Dead, The Tragedy of Richard III speaks to unsettling things in a settling way, ensuring you come away enriched.

The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare, adapted by Oisín Kearney and Michael Patrick, presented by Lyric Theatre, NI, runs at Lyric Theatre as part of Belfast International Arts Festival 2024 until November 10.

For more information visit Belfast International Arts Festival 2024 or Lyric Theatre, Belfast