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"Before: Well,
it could prove rather interesting. Afterwards:- It's tremendous.
Imaginative, engrossing, excellently spoken; Shakespeare's plot
not distorted by Barton's gloss; Barton's direction underpinning
the play's themes - both the explicit and the credibly implicit
- penetrating it with his own theatric references. "...Richardson's
Richard is not just a different actor playing the part but a different
attitude to playing. His self-fascinated monarch languishes into
decline with accesses of grief that approach distraction. Where
Pasco stretched himself tautly across the lowered bridge, Richardson
reclines there like a wounded Adonis. But his melodious voice,
caressing, rasping or striking like a whip's crack, never strays
down exquisite cul de sacs but remains a tough conduit for his
thought."
Jeremy Kingston Punch April 18 1973
"For nearly
10 years the Royal Shakespeare Company have lived in the shadow
of The Wars of the Roses. ... Now, at last, they are laying the
ghost. Of Richardson's King, "...the actor achieves a heart-wringing
sweetness. It is a performance of complexity and fascination."
John Barber The Daily Telegraph 12 April
1973
"In Mr Barton's metaphysical, theological, anthropological Richard
II there is more originality of thought, more theatrical flair,
and a more intellectually committed response to the challenges
of the day than I have found in any German, French or Russian
official production during the last fifteen years. The most compelling
masterpieces are not those of swiftest appeal, nor of easiest
comprehension...It is only when you submit your heart and mind
wholly to their continuous influence that they establish over
you an enriching and unbreakable hold, illuminating aspects of
life whose existence you had never before perceived. It is the
same with Mr Barton's Richard II."
Harold Hobson The Sunday Times April 15th
1973
"Each version
is a gripping experience on its own. To see both in succession
may come expensive, but offers an amazing illumination of both
human nature and the mysteries of acting. "...Pasco's Richard,
when the divinity that hedges a king is dissolved, is left an
utterly wounded human being; Richardson's, when the regal mast
is stripped away, reveals another mask beneath, and then another.
"...I came away from these performances, in this production, ashamedly
wondering if, for all the thirty or so versions, I have attended,
I had ever really seen the play before."
J W Lambert The Sunday Times 22 September
1974
"This company
in the past few years has evolved for Shakespeare a grand rhetorical
manner as exhilarating, as rich, subtle and wholly original as
the style invented by Stanislavsky in his day for Chekhov, or
Brecht's for himself. At its best, as in this production, it combines
spareness with splendour, gorgeous trappings with a singular intellectual
rigour and imaginative complexity."
Hilary Spurling The Observer 22 September
1974
"When
Richardson's King is usurped, the actors in the Court have to
be restrained by Northumberland from responding to his imperious
entrance when summoned to hear his sentence."
Michael Coveney
Review
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