Richard III - Gamut Theatre in the park

Did Richard of Gloucester have his two preteen nephews killed? His accession to the British throne was based on them being declared illegitimate, and they were never seen in public after they were sent to live at the Tower of London. Their fate remains technically uncertain.

The rumor, even then, was that they were murdered. And indeed, I think I read about this in one of my elementary/middle-school history textbooks. I read more at that age -- dozens of Great Illustrated Classics that cut famous works of literature down to size for my easy consumption, a number of books (Gulliver's Travels, Frankenstein) I read in their original form, the King James Bible itself. I lived in a sunny world with a constant, vague, background awareness that we were not so many decades or continents removed as we would often like to think from the horror of war or the tyranny of amoral, power-hungry men.

In Shakespeare's account of the rise and fall of King Richard III, Richard does have his nephews murdered. In Thomas Weaver's masterful performance, by no means short of the relish in evil we expect from the character, the ordering of this particular execution comes almost as a tired afterthought. But when young Logan McDonnell as the Prince of York cries out in terror, it kicks the already-bloody play up a notch from being largely political intrigue into a depiction of pointless human tragedy.

Richard III, Gamut Theatre's 30th anniversary Shakespeare-in-the-Park production, is a rock-solid piece of entertainment. I concur with another review (is it bad form to read other reviews before writing your own?) when I say that the dialogue, in my estimation, is perfectly understandable and should not be a barrier to anyone thinking about going but secretly worried it will sound like a foreign language.

The cast is populated largely by semi-professional actors, and I admit that this production has now fully won me over to the logic of performing Shakespeare in the open air. Over the past 96 years that we've had movies with synchronized sound, the quasi-documentary nature of films has fooled us, I half-believe, into thinking drama is merely a collection of scenes from imagined lives. Shakespeare is lauded as a rich repository of psychological drama, but his plays may hardly be called naturalistic on that account. To hell with naturalism! Shakespeare--imagining events that, in Richard III's case, happened roughly as close to his time as World War I to ours--tears one wall and a roof off castle rooms in the middle of conversations that have the potential to set the course of world history. As we actors continue to take upon ourselves, into the present day, the task of representing these historical personages, why should we not weep and declaim these words loudly under the stars?

The other advantage of open-air Shakespeare is that, when Richard addresses the audience and asks, "Was ever woman in this humor wooed? Was ever woman in this humor won?", you might just hear a solitary "no!" shouted back from the audience.

There's not a weak link in the cast; the sound design is fun and creative; the set features a rotating throne. Local Shakespeare and drama enthusiasts, please make your way posthaste to Gamut's Richard III.

Richard III is playing Wednesday through Saturday until June 17th at 7:30pm at Reservoir Park in Harrisburg. Admission is free (although donations are accepted). More info at https://www.gamuttheatre.org/fsip