Don’t be intimidated by Richard III like the Duke of Buckingham (Credit: Kimberley Mead)
For anyone wondering what the true form and function of theater looks like, consider “Booth’s Richard III” at Austin Scottish Rite Theatre, playing for one more weekend on June 29 and 30. This performance of Colley Cibber’s “Richard III,” taken from the original script notes by American thespian turned villain, John Wilkes Booth, is unlike anything you’ll see this year.
Let me frame it for you. Beth Burns, Artistic Director of Hidden Room Theatre and the Master of Play, announces the show and briefly explains what you are about to see: lots of stage violence, melodrama, gesture acting, and hundreds of lines of Shakespeare. In short, maybe everything you hate about theater. And yet, she begs, there is one thing fundamental to bringing Shakespeare’s plays to life: you, the audience. [Read more…]
