Richard III It's the Fifth Murray State Shakespeare Festival, and for once I'm right in the middle of it. I hate to say that I haven't been much before, but I haven't. Our festival charges for everything because it's funded by next-to-nothing. I'm perfectly willing to donate to help it survive, but there's many students who feel differently about their hard-earned dollars.
They're missing out.
The Blackfriars Stage Company takes a pretty traditional approach to shakespeare. To imitate the thrust stage the company set up chairs on either side of Lovett's massive stage. I was on the front row there, right by the actors. It was amazing.
Richard III is a pretty lengthy play, so cuts were made. There were a couple of awkward transitions where someone not familiar with the play may feel a little left out of the intrigue, but not so many that it detracted from the experience. Richard was not overly-crippled, he just had a "withered arm" that was kept close to his side. Only 11 actors were used to cover the 30-something parts. This alone won my awe. The costuming, of course, served to set the characters apart. While it seemed everyone's attire was fairly muted and of similar cut, repeated appearances showed that some were associated with gold, others blue, depending on the scene. I'm not sure how much of this was intentional, but it certainly served to offset some confusion the multiple costume changes could have caused.
In short, if you're from Murray and didn't go, you missed out. Much Ado About Nothing is tomorrow, and Return to the Forbidden Planet (the Tempest as a Rock Opera) is tomorrow night. Go see one of them!  ¶   0 comments