ARCHIVES 2015 / Richard III

An incarnation of absolute evil, as ugly of body as he is dark of soul: so is King Richard often perceived. Able to seduce with his words, this student of Machiavelli is a genius manipulator who positions himself at the heart of all the bloodiest political machinations that take place at the court of England. A poisonous and perverted hero, he is as fascinating as Iago or Lady Macbeth, and the centuries haven't made him any less mysterious. Thomas Ostermeyer is the latest to tackle Shakespeare's play, in a new translation by Marius von Mayenburg that changes English verses into German prose to keep as close to the text's meaning as possible and paint the portrait of a Richard III who, more than just a serial killer, also reveals the instincts hidden inside every man. This king-actor, played by Lars Eidinger, uses his gifts to do on the stage what we might want to do, sometimes, in our lives. He creates with the audience a troubling complicity that gives another meaning to this bloody, disturbing, and overwhelming epic. Once again, Thomas Ostermeier manages to turn the theatre stage into the place where the past can become the present.

After studying direction in Berlin in the 1980s, Thomas Ostermeier's name first appeared on the map when he was appointed artistic director of the Barracke at the Deutsches Theater, where he worked from 1996 to 1999. There, he directed plays by modern German and English-speaking playwrights, to great acclaim. In September 1999, aged 31, he became co-artistic director of the Schaubühne, where he continued his work as a discoverer of new texts. Marius von Mayenburg, Lars Norén, Sarah Kane, Jon Fosse, and Caryl Churchill joined Georg Büchner, Bertolt Brecht, Henrik Ibsen, Frank Wedekind, and William Shakespeare in the repertory of the theatre. Classic or modern, those texts are always reinterpreted and integrated to the reality of post-reunification Germany and of an officially-united Europe. Yet those plays, like the German and European states, remain splintered, echoing the reality of a world in which conflicts are multiplying and barbarism hasn't disappeared. Thomas Ostermeier's engaged, living, critical, and generous theatre is just as concerned with the role of the individual within society as with great timeless questions.

Richard III was written early in William Shakespeare's career, between 1592 and 1593, right after the Henry VI trilogy, of which it could be seen as a sequel. Its story is that of the end of the civil war known as the Wars of the Roses, which raged in England between 1455 and 1485. The rivalry between the Lancaster and York families indeed comes to an end with the battle of Bosworth; in the last scene of Richard III, the eponymous king is slain by Henry Tudor, who will ascend the throne as Henry VII.