30 Jul 2024
Kernow Chamber Players bring the Bard’s bloodfest to the Roman Theatre Festival, and Deborah Heath is a witness…
The Kernow Chamber Players, founded in 2021, aim to “bring live music in many different genres to audiences in Cornwall” and their musicians are a range of “established professionals and the most promising young students from the country”.
This is an exciting set of objectives, and I was pleased to see them venturing further afield than Cornwall to visit our own fair theatre.
Richard III is one Shakespeare’s bloodiest history plays, telling the story of an envious, manipulative prince longing to be king, not caring who he kills to make it possible. Perhaps the most famous of these murders is the princes in the Tower.
However, Richard isn’t so keen on committing murders himself and has a knack of persuading other people to do it for him. It really is a set-up for a great story and I was intrigued to see how the company would incorporate live music into their production.
I am always delighted to see a live band on stage and was impressed further to discover that composer Harriet Bushman had created the score especially for this production. The incidental music made the perfect soundtrack by enhancing the action of the play and being perfectly executed by the musicians. I certainly wasn’t
expecting an operatic version of the play with the actors to singing most of the verse and will explore whether or not this worked for me later.
The play was performed by a company of frighteningly talented actor singers, led by actor-director Tama Matheson as Richard himself.
With such a large cast, I cannot mention everyone separately, but I must start by applauding the two teenage cast members Elena Mackay and Noah Short for playing the princes in the tower with such sensitivity.
Their death scene alongside AJ Deane as murderer Tyrrel was heartbreaking. Tama Matheson was a really striking and believable Richard III who used his eyes to great effect to establish a link with his audience. Gary Tushaw oozed charisma as Duke of Buckingham and power with his singing voice.
Costume design was exquisite; there was something magical about the gold thread picking up the lights in our outdoor theatre. This worked particularly well in one of my favourite scenes in Act IV in which Queen Elizabeth (Milena Knauss), Margaret) Tara Hugo) and the Duchess of York (Caroline Kennedy) grieve for their dead. It was such a poignant scene and so well-handled by this talented trio.
I appreciated the colour symbolism in the costumes too including the green (for envy) lining of Richard’s coat.
The use of stage space was pleasing; it is great to see the whole auditorium being used.
One thing that didn’t quite work however was when actors spoke from behind the audience yet, the sound system played their voices from the stage.
This was more of a problem after nightfall because at this point, the characters speaking from the rear were not lit so it was really difficult to know who was speaking.
On the whole though, movement and blocking were very well considered.
I found the battle choreography involving sticks/swords to be particularly successful, and the way Richard was held up to indicate his head being cut off was a clever stroke.
So let us return to the issue of the choral interpretation of this classic play. I always admire a company for trying something new with a much-performed Shakespeare text.
As well as theatre writing, I work as a musician and I really appreciated the execution of Harriet Bushman’s beautiful score both from the instrumentalist and actor-singers. A favourite song of mine was Richard’s “I do the wrong” which really enhanced the text with its discordant strains.
However, on the whole, I found this interpretation, in which it felt like over half of Shakespeare’s words were sung, created a bit of a barrier to following the plot and fully appreciating the Bard’s language.
It’s a personal preference of course but I felt that it would have been better balanced with fewer sung sections. It is no reflection at all on the talent of the performers and composer who were excellent.
What I found a distraction would have no doubt been a highlight to many of the audience and once again, I really do admire the Kernow Chamber Players for trying something new. This show is well worth a visit for music and drama lovers.
