YON METHINKS SHE STANDS
Over the last year or so, some of my best time in an audience has been spent watching Paige Lindsey White. Twice in collaboration with director Jessica Kubzansky at Boston Court, once with Debbie Devine at 24th Street, this actor has embodied the reasons I revere artists. Sometimes portraying children, sometimes men, now wielding a puppet, now a sword, Ms. White isn’t your average SAG-card slumming in a couple of plays. She so fairly steals R II that the story of Shakespeare’s King Richard the Second, here truncated and fragmented by Ms. Kubzansky, might well be seen through the eyes of her primary character (though she and Jim Ortlieb both play everyone but Richard):
Henry Bolingbroke (Ms. White), nephew of Edward III of England, is exiled from England by his cousin Richard II (John Sloan), an effete, power-tripping monarch whose travel plans do not include leaving an ambitious and likely rebellious Bolingbroke back home unsupervised. Henry’s father, John of Gaunt, fails in his suit to have the exile rescinded. Piqued at Gaunt’s dying recriminations, and urged on by sycophants, Richard confiscates Bolingbroke’s inheritance for use in his Irish wars. Various peers conspire to assist Bolingbroke in invading England, seizing the throne, and imprisoning the king. Richard mopes in the Tower, eloquently contemplating the nature of sovereignty and spinelessness, while Bolingbroke considers his options. (The play serves in part as a ramp to the two parts of Henry IV and, eventually, to Henry V.)
Ms. Kubzansky’s version mostly tells the tale in flashbacks from Richard’s mind as he stews in his cell. It’s an economical storytelling device, focusing the story on Richard’s biases and perceptions. That Ms. Kubzansky deletes most of the motivation for England’s commons and nobility deciding wholesale to overthrow a king is of little concern to this vision of a personality unable to reconcile its plight with its faults. It works, not least because Shakespeare’s Richard II is short on story and long on philosophy and exposition. It’s a neat and effective design, greatly supported by Kaitlyn Pietras’s rich, simple set and Jeremy Pivnick’s as-ever rock-solid lighting.
Unfortunately, this is one of those productions that opens with a babble of recorded voices and aural effects (sound design by John Zalewski) made redundant by video projections of the foreboding lines being spoken (projection design by Ms. Pietras), reaching a crescendo in which the protagonist holds his ears and screams to indicate that this is all happening in his head. I confess myself baffled by the use of projected text as set dressing, and of plays in which someone screams before the audience can appreciate the gesture’s context.
A bigger problem is that the actors appear to have been instructed to act in an arch, superficial mode that throws attention to the novel conceit. In a story that needs a lot of theatricality, it’s an odd choice to encourage actors not to invest in passion. Mr. Sloan’s Richard is very effective when he pouts and smirks; his body speaks very well. But his chuckles, soliloquies and, yes, his screams appear as mannerisms not of character but of performer, distracting in their insincerity. Similarly, Mr. Ortlieb delineates a few of his many characterizations but largely allows one personage to fade into another, serving more as mouthpiece than interpreter.
For some reason, Ms. White is not similarly affected. Perhaps it’s that indomitable spark that brimmed in her eyes throughout the full hour of Walking the Tightrope this year; she may be incapable of a surface portrayal. Her Queen Isabel is as ardent and doting as her Groom is furtive and nervous. Jenny Foldenauer dresses Ms. White to accentuate her broad shoulders and magnificent sweep of clavicle and neck. When she takes stage as Bolingbroke, there is no question that this noble will accomplish what he intends. A storm of intention and will swirls about her even when her character is in doubt, and it is beyond my capacity to look away from such power.
photos by Ed Krieger
R II
The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena
scheduled to end on October 13, 2013
for tickets, call 626.683.6883 or visit http://www.bostoncourt.com