Richard III at the Steppenwolf Garage

Or: Sympathy for the Devil

It is the night before the battle of Bosworth Field and Richard the Third (Michael Patrick Thornton) is looking from a great hight at a long way down. With pen and paper, wine and candlelight, the king rewinds, pauses and plays out his bloody ascension, beginning with the Murder of Henry VI, from scheme to scheme, death to death; from the disabled outcast in an able-bodied world to it’s ruler. He summons and commands the memories of his foes, conducting them as though directing the play of his own life, in command and unrepentant, until the ghosts start talking back.

There may be some perfect metaphor to describe, dear reader, what it is like to sit in on Jessica Thebus’s take on that most tragic of the Histories, but if there is I cannot find it. Born of the Next Theater, adopted by the Gift, and raised at Steppenwolf, this Richard is a motley creature, a patchwork of verse and movement, performance and conversation, hard edged silence and spirited hubbub, sticks and stones and miraculous technology. It’s a peculiar parlor piece, more Memory Play than History. At it’s worst it’s the best drama-school intensive Shakespeare you’ve seen (the ones where the set is moveable blocks, and everyone carries sticks, and the costumes are identical and grey, and everyone’s always running around, you know the ones I mean), and its best it is … incandescent.

This whole cosmos of memory balances on Thornton’s shoulders, and his ability to slide into the skin of that most problematic of heroes. The result of his efforts is a Richard unlike any I’ve seen before and likely not one I’ll see again: a laid back, conversational Richard, more similar to Mr. Rodgers than Louis C.K. The verse is there, pushing us forward, but delivered without rancor, without rush. Thornton ambles, pausing to exchange silent glances with us (when he contemplates incest to cement his claim to the throne he throws us a bitten lipped shrug as if to say, “Yeah, I know. Even for me. But what’s a guy to do?”), and goes in for the small jokes, lightly flagellating himself with a rosary when appearing piously before the citizens of London. His is a genial but no less menacing presence, and it is, above all things, honest.

This curious, effective storytelling also creates surprising alchemy when he addresses his ghosts. Thornton’s Richard doesn’t change when he threatens, lies, consoles. He lays out everything like it is, adopting no airs but putting his threats and deceptions forward is the calm, jocund but unstoppable manner, but his intention behind his word changes with each character he has to work around. In THE SCENE where Richard woos and wins Anne Warwick (Olivia Cygan) over the oozing body of her father-in-law, the soft light patter runs up against Cygan’s locomotive of articulated verse, sometimes scornfully quiet, sometimes ripping unearthly howls of rage. Two fine performances of two very different schools, unstoppable force meets immovable object, but the magic lies in the long charged silences between them, as when Richard hauls himself up from his wheelchair to face the object of his affections on his two feet, or when Anne glides, crocodile smiling and fever-eyed, towards him, radiating River Tam-like serenity and threat. The sound of two sets of laboring breaths, putting our teeth on edge with their promise of fight, fornication, or further fulmination, provide pure, untranslated drama, that hits us like a drug.

Richard shifts again when tangling with the two fine performance of Keith Neagle’s Buckingham, Richard’s red right hand, and Jenny Avery as Queen Elizabeth, his arch nemesis. Neagle’s economy of motion and clearness of text serve as counterpoints to the rise and dissolution of his favor. When Richard, presumably with the funds of royalty at his back, can stand for the first time, using a prototype armor courtesy of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, he makes a point to hold Buckingham’s hand high above his head, proclaiming how much he values him. It’s a marvelous moment of friendship, each man grinning, that quickly tips into distrust and an unquiet death. For her part, Avery attacks the verse, bending every finger and toe into howls of rage, while still keeping her words barbed and flying true. In THE OTHER SCENE, when Richard turns to his arch nemesis for assistance after the murder of her allies, brothers and children, Richard finally begins losing his cool, trying to snatch oaths from the air, unable to keep pace, literally or figuratively, with the cursing Queen.

The ensemble efficiently flows from one scene to another (ala those drama school intensives), dragging on blocks, stamping sticks exercising taunting physical strength. The various beheadings, paused and rewound for Richard’s pleasure, are satisfyingly final, though the smothering of Young Edward and York (Hannah Toriumi and Brittany Burch, shamefully adorable in their ability to capture young children), leave something to be desired. Everyone takes their own root to their characters, often exaggerated, some well done, like the contortions and deep lunged curses of Shanésia Davis’s Queen Margaret and the two bro-y murderers (Martel Manning and Jay Worthington) sent by Richard to kill his brother the Duke of Clarence (Thomas J. Cox) and some … less so, like Lord Hastings Yoda impression.

Like the particular cast of its hero, the show is an honest production. The hodgepodge of its staging, though at times overtly physical, carries the show forward at a rumbling pace, a counter point to the revery that Thornton steeps us in. It also makes quite clear that we cannot lean back and be merely entertained. Remembering his coronation, the roaring of the crowds retreating to a repeated whisper, “Long live king Richard” as the reality of Bosworth floods back, Richard looks to us, the last vestiges of his rule, the only ones who can listen, who could understand. Love him or not, we are Richard’s accessories, his comforters. We are there to share his winks, complete his offered high fives, laugh at his jests, suck our teeth at his disappointments, and be there, to remember, when memories grows teeth, and nightmares come baring swords.