Richard II
Designers: Timothy O’Brien and Tazeena Firth
Cast & Crew
Crew | |
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Designer | Timothy O’Brien |
Director | John Barton |
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Photographs
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Observations
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Simply the best production I’ve ever seen of any play, anywhere. Forty years on it still lives with me.
Richard Pasco and Ian Richardson alternated as Richard and Bolinbroke. We saw the Saturday matinee with Pasco as Richard and then the evening performance with Richardson as Richard.
Barton included a prelude to the action, in which Shakespeare himself advances downstage with the two leads identically dressed towards a tee-shaped clothes stand on which the symbols of kingship rest – a golden poncho and a golden crown and stylised face mask. He points to one of the heads, who then assumes the role of Richard. At the end of the play the king appears again fully clothed and masked, and at the final flourish of drums, the two hooded monks flanking him throw back their cowls to reveal Pasco and Richardson. Sheer magic.
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