Monday, October 22, 2012

Richard III Casebook - Jess

Richard the Terrible

Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on Friday, November 16, 1581 - Ilya Repin (1873)

This painting has haunted me ever since I came across it in a college art history class some six or seven years ago. The saturated colors, the lush textures, the agonizing expressions on both Ivans' faces - - - all are bound up together in one dissonant image of unimaginable wealth and power juxtaposed against the aftermath of deadly violence. To me, that is the ethos of Richard III, this idea of beauty/wealth/power and its "double" of sorts, violence/rage/conspiracy. In completing my initial research, I feel that setting Richard III in 16th century Russia would prove to be a rich and meaningful endeavor.

Tsar Ivan IV (the Terrible) of Russia (1530 - 1584) was the son of the Grand Prince of Moscow, who succeeded in creating a somewhat unified Russia under the tsardom. It would last in one form or another until the revolution in 1917 when the Soviet Union was created. Unlike Richard, the historical Ivan was, in all probability, just as fearsome as his title suggests. Some historical sources characterize him as the embodiment of evil (much like Richard), while others acknowledge his intelligence and efforts to modernize Russia, despite his violent and paranoid proclivities. He murdered many of the Russian nobility, convinced they were threats to his rule, and in a fit of rage, he beat his son and heir to death, as portrayed above by the late 19th century Russian painter Ilya Repin.

Repin's work can give us another visual cue into the world of the play as I see it. His representation of the Grand Duchess Sofia made me think of Queen Margaret in Richard III, and indeed, Sofia shares much in common with Margaret. She was incarcerated at the Novodevichy Convent in 1698 after her bloody reign as regent for several of her younger brothers, which included a failed uprising. The wide-eyed, haunting expression on her face, the richness of her clothes, and the image of one of her followers, hung outside her window, all echo Repin's depiction of Ivan and his dying son. Violence in the midst of wealth and power.



The very first line of the play - - "Now is the winter of our discontent" - - made me think of Russia, as well. To me, there is a palpable chill that runs throughout the play, and setting it in a Russian winter would be both aesthetically and theoretically fruitful. The colors of a Russian winter, both interior and exterior, would help craft an atmosphere of tension, hardship, and beauty. Think furs, heavy brocades, rubies, gold leaf, dark wood, crackling fires - - - I want to evoke luxury and power with the potential for violence, a thin veneer of decorum that masks a deep, unpredictable and violent interior. To me, that is the vision of Richard I see, the one I want to place front and center in this production.



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