Richard II is Shakespeare's historical drama inspired by the so-called War of the Roses. Even in some records from Shakespeare's time it is characterized as poor and rarely performed. There are no double plots, no great verbal and fencing duels, no ghosts, no wordy seduction, not even Falstaff. In a word, this is one of the weaker, less known and less performed Shakespeare's works. The main character, Richard II, is dethroned by the rebellious duke Henry Bolinbroke already in the first half of the play, and then we follow the king's internal drama until his execution. When you read Richard II, you may ask yourself: why would anyone play this piece today? However, the director Boris Liješević gave an answer to that question in his presentation. Playwrights Fedor Šili and Vesna Radovanović helped him in this. A good touch was made and secondary characters were effectively summarized, so the action is clear and the idea of the play is clear.
Richard II The play by the Yugoslav Drama Theater is about the anatomy of the fall from power. That fall is not only the fall of one king, but a broader social picture in which we see the role of the ruler and his subjects and the attitude of the disenfranchised people towards the government. It all starts with an individual in power becoming maniacally obsessed with his own greatness. Because he equates himself with the crown, he thinks he can do literally anything he sets his mind to - kill, banish lords, seize estates, wage wars, and sell state resources. The claim that the king sold the main state resource, trampled on the liberties of his citizens and became a wordless, arrogant tyrant is constantly highlighted in the play and resonates strongly in the ears of the modern viewer. But this play does not start from that, but from the question that bothers many of us, which Duke John of Gaunt (Igor Samobor) asks: what should an individual do when he sees that the ruler has become a tyrant? Interpreting Shakespeare's text, Liješević offers us a whole range of different answers. A citizen who is faced with tyranny can be passive and get carried away with the idea that the tyrant will wise up on his own, or that he is in fact good but flatterers and self-interested people from his environment push him into misfortune. He can justify his inaction by claiming that tyranny always devours itself. Also, he can be active - to try to impress with flattery, or to rebel, or to weigh carefully - to start as a flatterer, and when the situation is reversed, to switch to the side of the winner. Having no access to power, the people are left to groan under injustice, or to run after a rebel hoping that the next ruler will be better than the previous one. Richard II is not only a play about falling from power, but also about how an individual necessarily suffers when he allows himself to equate his own identity with the social role he plays. Richard wonders in the dungeon - who am I if I am not the king and how is it possible for the king, God's anointed, to have such a miserable fall? The fear of losing one's own identity by losing one's social position makes many people do what they should never do - it is also a life situation that is very well known to the audience of the Yugoslav Drama Theater.
The entire performance is organized in such a way that these questions are constantly provoked in the audience, but without immersing themselves in the fate of the characters.
At the beginning, the scene is almost empty, and then, when the mechanism of the dispossession of the ruler is triggered, Igor Vasilyev's scenography is also triggered, creating an association with a palace, a labyrinth or a dungeon. The moment when the surfaces turn towards us and create a huge mirror that fills the entire "ramp" so that both the audience and the actors are reflected in it is particularly effective. Marija Marković Milojev's costumes are contemporary and functional, with only a few signs that clearly indicate the character's function in a given scene. The music of the LP Duo (Sonja Lončar and Andrija Pavlović) plays a significant role in this play. Discreetly present almost all the time, the music hits the cerebellum and stimulates emotions in the audience that contribute to the clear message of the play.
In the play with a minimalistic expression, the actors did well, embodying the character of their character with a clear gesture. Andjelika Simić as the Duchess of York was outstanding because with several very accurate gestures, she showed how a coward behaves, who is panic-stricken and afraid of the motorcyclist, but still cannot resist the thought that she might get lost in a crowd. Aleksej Bjelogrlić as the Duke of Omerlo from the beginning took the position of a slob who hides dullness and laziness behind a restrained and almost pious pose. Aleksandar Đurica as the Duke of York and Danilo Milovanović (Duke Thomas Mowbray/Buchy/Count of Solbzeri) did not play their roles with such impressive gestures, but still had a clear enough plot line. The director arranged that Queen Isabella (Sanja Marković) at the beginning looks as if she is "spoiled" by some opiates, then acts as if she loves Richard very much, but it is not clear how such a big transformation happened. Igor Samobor in a double role (Duke John of Gaunt/Earl of Northumberland) fails to deliver his lines clearly and articulately. Samobor has mastered the Serbian language well, but still not so well that he always has the correct speech act, good articulation and speaks with ease. The costume designer dressed him inconspicuously, as if everyman. This is logical considering that he is loudly saying a question addressed to the audience - what should a citizen do when the ruler becomes a tyrant? Precisely because he utters a question that must be engraved in our minds and hearts, his speech act would have to be perfect.
The plot of the play revolves around Richard II, played by Milan Marić, and the rebellious Duke of Bolinbrook, the future Henry IV, played by Vojin Ćetković. With the role of Bolinbrook, Vojin Ćetković followed up on the acting that we saw in the play Mihael Kolhas (also directed by Boris Liješević). He is solid, determined, calm and collected, and therefore gives the impression of a trustworthy person. Very discreetly, only here and there, Ćetković shows us that his Bolinbrook can be cunning, practical, reckless and therefore a very dangerous opponent. On the other hand, Milan Marić plays Richard II as a man who is initially self-absorbed and unaware of what he does to others. Unlike Bolinbroke, who, it turns out, is reckless in the end, Richard II is as callous as a spoiled brat at the beginning. That's why he treats his subjects like insects that he squashes or throws them around like figurines. When he falls from power, Marić plays a man who falls into a deep crisis because he has to understand who he is without the crown. That part of Richard's personality must have many different faces, and it seems to us that Marić has not yet found all those faces in order to show the depth of the king's fall in layers.
From beginning to end it is clear that we are watching a cruel mechanism of government that grinds down the careless and naive, and elevates the cunning and reckless. In this view of government, one ruler does not differ from another by whether he is better or worse, but by whether he is cunning enough so that his subordinates do not recognize his intentions. I'm not sure how useful that attitude is to us today, but I'm quite sure that Shakespeare didn't write with that idea in mind. As a subject of Queen Elizabeth, he made a very clear distinction between good and bad rulers. The "Richards" who came from the house of Anjou or York were portrayed as bad rulers, in contrast to the "Henries" from the house of Lancaster, where the queen herself came from. We can debate whether he wanted to ingratiate himself with the queen or whether he really believed that he was living in the golden age, as Elizabeth's long reign was called. But that is not important at all for the value of his work. Shakespeare is a great writer because everyone can find a mirror in his plays, even when the play is not one of the best, as is the case with historical drama Richard II.
Real journalism costs money, and we will not be bought by tycoons and corporations. Support us with a one-time or monthly donation. The time for it is now!
