Review: RICHARD II, Jack Studio Theatre

A decade or so ago, the boutique opera sprung up as a concept - getting rid of complicated sets, extraneous subplots and most of the orchestra and concentrating on the core story, the key characters and the music. They were more cost-effective to stage (and attend), less gruelling for first-timers new to the form and highlighted long-obscured qualities within familiar works. It's surprising to see that the formula is not embraced more frequently with Shakespeare.

But We Are Animate may change that with their first venture into the canon, the history of a weak king, played mercilessly by his rival, ultimately losing his crown. This 80 minutes all-through version of Richard II whistles through his fall from grace, concentrating on his naive political manoueuvrings rather than his internal wrestling with religious piety, but there's a pace and crispness to the storytelling and nobody expects a full examination of the complexity of our tragic hero within these parameters.

Much depends on Michael Rivers as Richard - initially charismatic, if fey and skittish, brought to his knees (literally) by his unwillingness to be ruthless with an obvious potential usurper, Henry Bolingbroke. Rivers is on stage (beautifully lit by Jack Channer) almost throughout, but director, Lewis Brown, has the foot on the accelerator so hard that we don't quite catch the full tragedy of the price he pays for his character flaws and misguided, sentimental decision-making. Rivers speaks Shakespeare's poetry with great skill and feeling, thrillingly so at times, so up close and personal that one catches something of what it must have been like to hear it, centuries ago, a few miles away on the banks of the Thames.

Fleur De Wit is Richard's nemesis, her Bolingbroke homing in on Richard's vulnerabilities, assembling nobles already mightily pissed off with their monarch's taxes gleefully levied to fund adventurism in Ireland. In this almost modern politician, one can see the future Henry IV building a road out of the mysticism of England's Dark Ages and into a pragmatic, soon to be Renaissance-influenced future. While the arguments for cross-gendered casting in Shakespeare are valid, sometimes the words do not sit easily with the pitch and tone of the female voice and Bolingbroke. a most alpha male of alpha males, isn't as convincing as he might be in consequence.

Amongst the support cast, Daniel Ghezzi stands out as Bolingbroke's chillingly effective henchman, Northumberland, and Hilary Burns rages against the dying of the light, her John of Gaunt well capable to see the fate of England, but too infirm to do anything about it. Shakespeare, writing in the last years of Elizabeth I's long reign, always has a warning or two for his audiences (particularly one of them) about the dangers of an unclear succession.

This production s both a fine introduction to Shakespearean poetry (any schoolkid wrestling with iambic pentameter on the page, will instantly catch it when hearing it spoken) and to the plays that follow, charting the turbulence swirling around the English throne and culminating in the psychosis masterfully chronicled in Richard III. Now this company have dipped a toe in that deep, shark-infested pool, I look forward to their essaying a Henry or two and, of course, the most infamous monarch of them all, whose relevance could hardly be more on the nose right now.

Richard II is at the Jack Studio Theatre until 5 March

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