***** Broadway Baby ***** The Highlighter ***** Curtain Up
**** The Stage **** New York Times
**** The Scotsman
**** The List **** Fringe Guru **** The Mumble
'Outstanding Show' FringeReview
'Electric' - 'Complete theatre' - 'Immersive' - 'Captivating' - 'In a league of its own' - 'Dazzling' - 'Chillingly effective'
Exeunt's Best Regional Theatre 2016
WINNER OF
Creative Award (Artist or Company whose worked is deemed as being creatively exceptional)
PRAGUE FRINGE 2015
Inspiration Award (New piece of work staged no more than twice previously)
PRAGUE FRINGE 2015
Performance Award (Artist who has excelled in their performance at the festival)
Emily Carding – Richard III, Brite Theater
PRAGUE FRINGE 2015
Bobby Award Edinburgh Fringe 2015
Nominated for:
Creative Award (Artist or Company whose worked is deemed as being creatively exceptional)
PRAGUE FRINGE 2016
Performance Award (Artist who has excelled in their performance at the festival)
Emily Carding – Richard III, Brite Theater
PRAGUE FRINGE 2016
CITIZENS THEATRE 2018
The Scotsman, Joyce McMillan
Richard III, Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow ****
The idea that evil contains an element of appealing, reductive jokery is not new, of course. It goes back to mediaeval morality plays, and beyond; and it has been widely explored in recent productions of Shakespeare’s Richard III, which often bring the experience of modern stand-up comedy to bear on Richard’s extraordinary, complicit relationship with the audience.
Emily Carding’s [edit: and Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir's] remarkable version of Richard III takes that idea to its logical conclusion by transforming the play entirely into a one-hour solo show, in which all the other characters are represented by members of the audience. Sometimes, the designated member of the audience has to stand up, pour a drink, even place the crown on Richard’s head; but mostly, they simply end up wearing post-it notes signalling that like most of those who had dealings with Shakespeare’s Richard, they are now dead. It’s an approach that speaks volumes about how little agency other characters in this play have, and how its action revolves entirely around its wily protagonist; and although it is slightly more successful in the play’s conspiratorial early stages than at its conscience-riven conclusion, it still makes space for an extraordinary performance from Emily Carding, a female Richard as bitter, damaged, ingenious and irresistible as any I’ve ever seen.
Reveiws Hub
Posted by: The Reviews Hub - Scotland in Drama, Review, Scotland, Shakespeare 11/04/2018 0
Reviewer: Harriet Brace
A Machiavellian masterpiece, Richard III is an epic tale of ambition, betrayal and bloodshed. Yet Brite Theater’s one-woman adaptation of the giant play brings the story to life in a way that’s intelligent, relatable, and brilliant.
One of Shakespeare’s greatest successes, with multiple reincarnations on stage and screen, the play features perhaps the Bard’s most brutal and self-promoting villain – the “subtle and treacherous” Richard.
Born into an era of notorious royal bloodshed in the name of the crown, and with a deformity that makes him an outcast from court society, Richard’s ambition sees him weasel his way to advancement with clever allegiances and indiscriminate violence.
Richard’s indifference to butchery is such that it can be difficult for an audience to empathise with even his most sensitive moments. But Brite Theater’s production goes above and beyond merely engaging – by including the audience in Richard’s circle of frenemies, and having Richard pick them off one by one.
The play itself is like a murder mystery so deranged that the murderer is clear, but no-one dares to accuse – and time is called on someone new by the second.
Emily Carding’s depiction of Richard makes the production electric; enticingly sly and precise, with devious and conspiratorial glances around her audience as if sizing them up for slaughter. She embodies Richard’s intensifying self-importance in the way she moves, decisively striding around the stage and addressing even the King with self-satisfied scorn.
Carding narrates the somewhat complicated context with wit and assurance – compounded by her sharp ability to react to unscripted quips by members of the audience invited to be part of the action. Even her movements echo Richard’s motivations and compounding insecurities perfectly. We see her self-assured strides and commanding stares eventually shrink to more hesitant, slithering motions and paralysing expressions at Richard’s wretched acceptance of his own blood-soaked legacy.
Brite Theater’s Richard III is utterly unique, compelling and above all, fun. True to Shakespeare’s infamous tale, yet with a tongue in cheek attitude and clever nods to the modern political era, the production deserves the kind of acclaim coveted by Richard himself.
Reviewsphere
by AR Hunter
Emily Carding and Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir’s version of Richard III at the Citizen’s Theatre Glasgow is something else. I thought it would be a monologue when I went in, but that doesn’t describe this adaptation at all, even though Richard III has all the lines. Immediately on entrance, Carding greets the audience as Richard and gives some of them name plaques which will portend an interactive experience.
Richard wears a suit and tie, drinks wine and swings around the stage on a swivel chair as he talks to the audience. Carding’s strong physical presence, charisma and her dynamic interaction with the audience makes this a forceful performance.
Carding commands the whole room. Ordering unsuspecting members of the audience to silently play her brother, wife, the old King and all other characters, she beckons and dismisses them with a wave of her hand.
The scene where Richard woos and wins Anne is one of the best scenes of Shakespeare’s play, and is directed here to perfection with the emotional manipulations of Richard exposed beautifully by using the passivity of the audience member playing Anne. The very natural submissiveness of the audience works well in emphasizing Richard’s power and in making his frustration with his nobles hilarious as they stare in silence at him, giving a nod or shake of the head here and there. On the night I saw it, Richard plucked an audience member to play an assassin and then gently mocked his slowness in finding the young princes. But there was little audience mockery in this adaptation, it was all very genial and inclusive.
The gentle humour of this adaptation is one of its strengths – Carding’s fluid performance is peppered with off-the-cuff wit blended seamlessly into Richard III’s character. She carries the whole thing with aplomb, and does so better than most Shakespeare ensemble casts I’ve seen. In fact, she perfectly captures the wicked but engaging character of Richard III.
NAPA INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL, KARACHI
DAWN, Published Mar 20, 2018 07:04am
Richard loves Richard
PEERZADA SALMAN
It takes exceptional talent and some out-of-the-box thinking for a single actor to stay on stage for an hour and keep the audience glued to their seats, listening to every word that the character utters, even if a major chunk of the audience is not familiar with the text used by the actor.
It happened on Sunday night when Emily Carding played, nay reinterpreted, Shakespeare’s Richard III all by herself in the National Academy of Performing Arts’ (Napa) Zia Mohyeddin theatre.
But wait? Was she alone on stage? No. Before she began portraying Richard III, she invited, in certain cases, got hold of, more than 20 members of the audience to sit in the chairs placed on the stage. She turned them into the play’s characters. For example, King Edward IV sat on the extreme left chair, and Lady Anne Neville was sitting in the hall, right in front of the actor so that Richard could address her while looking straight into her eyes. Once that was taken care of, the play, directed by Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir, began.
How did it begin? For a couple of minutes, there was eerie silence in the hall. Carding sat in her revolving chair, looking at the rest of the characters with unwavering concentration, as if she had known them for a long, long time. Once she managed to get the right kind of ambience for her performance, she started to say her lines as Richard: “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this son of York...”
It was obvious by now that Carding interacted with the other (mute) characters by saying Richard’s lines not expecting a response from them. So, what she did was that she would approach each one of them, when there was a need for approaching them, and gesture them to stand up or follow her instructions. For example, Richard steps down the stage and walks towards the audience to convince Anne of his love. Anne (a flummoxed theatre lover) follows Richard’s instruction rather gingerly.
Richard III is the story of a scheming man who leaves no stone unturned to become king. He hankers after the English throne even if he has to kill his brother, which he does, and killing people is no big deal for him. He is a bitter person. The bitterness also stems from the fact that he has a deformity (hunchback) that makes him feel ugly. And yet, he says simple but loaded lines such as “Richard loves Richard, that is, I and I.”
This is where Carding’s performance was so absorbing to watch on Sunday. Yes, there is a fair degree of maliciousness to Richard. Yes, he is an abominable creature. Yes, he is greedy and wants power come what may. But Carding also shows the human, a bit vulnerable, side to the character. She doesn’t go overboard with his out-and-out villainous mannerisms. The audience can see a man (played by a woman, interestingly) who can emote without being too emotional. Therefore, while the actor’s performance was top-notch, it is her interpretation of the character, for which a great deal of credit should go to the director, which needs to be commended. Only, if the audience that had come to see the play, were familiar with the text!
Richard III was part of Napa’s ongoing international theatre and music festival.
Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2018
EDINBURGH FRINGE 2017
SG Fringe *****
Richard III (A One-Woman Show) *****Posted by Martin Miller
Emily Carding welcomes her audience in a plain black suit, white shirt, and red tie. Her hair is slicked back against her head, and she moves with a hunched limp. She welcomes the audience as old friends, the Duke of Buckingham, the Duke of Clarence, Lady Anne, before seating the remained of the audience in a round circle. Her composure is measured, manipulative, and utterly masterful: quintessentially Richard III.
“Richard III (A One Woman Show)” is a subtle, lean, and controlled adaptation of the Shakespeare play. Taking place over an hour, Carding’s Richard croons over and cajoles the audience. Having established audience plants for each of the major characters in the play, Carding impressively improvises around the script. A wide eyed nod or nervous laugh from an audience member is seized upon by Carding, an affirmation of Richard’s machinations.
The deceptive genius of this structure is the emphasis it places on Richard’s character. Stripping the character to his Machiavellian core, Richard is hypnotically manipulative and, at times, acerbically funny. While employing the murderers of the Duke of Clarence, Carding turned to the latter’s audience plant and told him to stick his fingers in his ears; “oh shoosh Clarence, la la la.”
It is easy to imagine where this play could go wrong. An enthusiastic audience, or an overly quiet one, could disturb the calm of a lesser performer. Yet Carding handles her audience with a seasoned confidence, both as a masterful storyteller and a confident interpreter of Shakespeare’s play. This is a performance for solo dramaphile, the romantic couple, or the excitable festival group.
“Richard III (A One Woman Show)” is theatrical delight from a performer at the top of her craft. It is a festival essential, and not one to be missed.
Freddie Alexander
ORACLE OF FILM *****
Richard III: The Review
Posted by lukebbttOctober 5, 2017
HomeTheatre Company: Brite Theatre
Cast: Emily Carding
Plot: Bitter humpback Richard of Gloucester (Carding) plots against the throne, using anyone and everyone as a pawn in a cruel game.
The audience are ferried into a dark room. Two rows of chairs facing each other present them, creating an instant breaking down of your personal space. In the distance, sits Emily Carding, watching us from the shadows, in the role she has been performing for what feels like an eternity. We sit and wait for her to decide when the show begins, the minutes stretching into what feels like hours. It proves one point: we are all under her control.
Thus begins a telling of Richard III like never before. The familiar beats are still there with a loathing Duke hating upon the crown and plotting against the throne. Every new character is essentially a red shirt, a person waiting to be thrown under the bus, in order to get Richard ever closer to his unwavering desire. Yet with Emily Carding’s one woman telling of the iconic play, the dread of the story is multiplied tenfold. Lacking a supporting cast to bounce off of, Carding employs the audience to play each part. Armed with placards designed to dangle from the audience’s necks, she begins her performance by selecting which audience members should play whom. The tension in the room is almost unbearable, as Carding circles her waiting victims, wondering if you will be gifted with playing a potential bride, an unwitting sibling or a irksome bastard heir. For one, it proves the point that this really is a one character show. The play holds up surprisingly well, Carding able to carry the story onwards even when her supporting cast are too petrified to speak up. If anything, the story is liberated with this freedom, no longer weighed down with the need to develop anyone but the principal player. And as you realise you are becoming the supporting cast, the intimacy of the story becomes painfully clear. You are now the victims of the events of this story, creating an experience arguably more immersive than any that have come before it. The tension fills the room, fear pounding in your eardrums. When Richard III cracks a joke about taking down the King, you laugh, partially at the well-timed quip, but also to save your own skin. When you are not in her cross-hairs, you are the bully’s best friend, laughing along with the insults, praying that worming up to her means that you might escape her wraith. You probably won’t. My palms were sweaty throughout the entire performance and you cannot help but attempt to recall a theatre experience that has the ability to have such an effect on you. You aren’t just watching the play, but wrapped up in it. Theatre shows are often called roller-coaster rides, but Brite Theatre have created a Richard III that genuinely feels like one. You are strapped into a ride you cannot escape until it is over and every moment of silence only adds to the fear of what is to come. Also, like a roller-coaster ride, as soon as it rocks to an end, you will likely rejoin the back of the queue to await another equally pulse-pounding go.
Immersive experiences like this require an actor brave enough to handle the work. So much could go wrong. A Lady Anne might refuse to meekly accept a proposal; a dead body might refuse to stay silent. But there is never one moment where it feels like Emily Carding is losing control. You almost want to heckle her, because you are sure that she has already prepared a smart put-down to put you back in your place. However, it is so much more than simply watching a host, carefully making sure the immersive tour stays on track. When the play needs to fall back on some good old-fashioned acting, Carding delivers. Even when she is silent, she is captivating, staring into each member’s eyes for an uncomfortably long time, gloriously clawing the most atmosphere out of a scene. The ending is an emotional blast, the kind of spectacle that you go to Shakespeare plays to see. There is also the inevitable feminist debates that come up with the casting of a female in a title male role. Surprisingly, only in afterthought does it become a discussion worth having. The truth is that as soon as Carding steps on-stage, you forget all about the rules of gender. Emily Carding is playing Richard III and what more is needed to be said on the matter. The performance is incredible; nuff said. It is unshowy feminism at its best, the kind of debate that is best served by a knowing nod, rather than a philosophical rambling. Talking about it almost robs it of its effect. It is the kind of new wave theatre that should be accepted, not argued with. And with shows that are as unashamedly confident as this one, it doesn’t seem like a massive stretch of the imagination to picture this trend as the done thing.
Final Verdict: There are many Richard III’s but never up so close. A gripping personal experience that emotionally shakes you. A sadly rare experience these days.
Five Stars
The Scotsman, Joyce McMillan
Richard III, Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow ****
The idea that evil contains an element of appealing, reductive jokery is not new, of course. It goes back to mediaeval morality plays, and beyond; and it has been widely explored in recent productions of Shakespeare’s Richard III, which often bring the experience of modern stand-up comedy to bear on Richard’s extraordinary, complicit relationship with the audience.
Emily Carding’s [edit: and Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir's] remarkable version of Richard III takes that idea to its logical conclusion by transforming the play entirely into a one-hour solo show, in which all the other characters are represented by members of the audience. Sometimes, the designated member of the audience has to stand up, pour a drink, even place the crown on Richard’s head; but mostly, they simply end up wearing post-it notes signalling that like most of those who had dealings with Shakespeare’s Richard, they are now dead. It’s an approach that speaks volumes about how little agency other characters in this play have, and how its action revolves entirely around its wily protagonist; and although it is slightly more successful in the play’s conspiratorial early stages than at its conscience-riven conclusion, it still makes space for an extraordinary performance from Emily Carding, a female Richard as bitter, damaged, ingenious and irresistible as any I’ve ever seen.
Reveiws Hub
Posted by: The Reviews Hub - Scotland in Drama, Review, Scotland, Shakespeare 11/04/2018 0
Reviewer: Harriet Brace
A Machiavellian masterpiece, Richard III is an epic tale of ambition, betrayal and bloodshed. Yet Brite Theater’s one-woman adaptation of the giant play brings the story to life in a way that’s intelligent, relatable, and brilliant.
One of Shakespeare’s greatest successes, with multiple reincarnations on stage and screen, the play features perhaps the Bard’s most brutal and self-promoting villain – the “subtle and treacherous” Richard.
Born into an era of notorious royal bloodshed in the name of the crown, and with a deformity that makes him an outcast from court society, Richard’s ambition sees him weasel his way to advancement with clever allegiances and indiscriminate violence.
Richard’s indifference to butchery is such that it can be difficult for an audience to empathise with even his most sensitive moments. But Brite Theater’s production goes above and beyond merely engaging – by including the audience in Richard’s circle of frenemies, and having Richard pick them off one by one.
The play itself is like a murder mystery so deranged that the murderer is clear, but no-one dares to accuse – and time is called on someone new by the second.
Emily Carding’s depiction of Richard makes the production electric; enticingly sly and precise, with devious and conspiratorial glances around her audience as if sizing them up for slaughter. She embodies Richard’s intensifying self-importance in the way she moves, decisively striding around the stage and addressing even the King with self-satisfied scorn.
Carding narrates the somewhat complicated context with wit and assurance – compounded by her sharp ability to react to unscripted quips by members of the audience invited to be part of the action. Even her movements echo Richard’s motivations and compounding insecurities perfectly. We see her self-assured strides and commanding stares eventually shrink to more hesitant, slithering motions and paralysing expressions at Richard’s wretched acceptance of his own blood-soaked legacy.
Brite Theater’s Richard III is utterly unique, compelling and above all, fun. True to Shakespeare’s infamous tale, yet with a tongue in cheek attitude and clever nods to the modern political era, the production deserves the kind of acclaim coveted by Richard himself.
Reviewsphere
by AR Hunter
Emily Carding and Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir’s version of Richard III at the Citizen’s Theatre Glasgow is something else. I thought it would be a monologue when I went in, but that doesn’t describe this adaptation at all, even though Richard III has all the lines. Immediately on entrance, Carding greets the audience as Richard and gives some of them name plaques which will portend an interactive experience.
Richard wears a suit and tie, drinks wine and swings around the stage on a swivel chair as he talks to the audience. Carding’s strong physical presence, charisma and her dynamic interaction with the audience makes this a forceful performance.
Carding commands the whole room. Ordering unsuspecting members of the audience to silently play her brother, wife, the old King and all other characters, she beckons and dismisses them with a wave of her hand.
The scene where Richard woos and wins Anne is one of the best scenes of Shakespeare’s play, and is directed here to perfection with the emotional manipulations of Richard exposed beautifully by using the passivity of the audience member playing Anne. The very natural submissiveness of the audience works well in emphasizing Richard’s power and in making his frustration with his nobles hilarious as they stare in silence at him, giving a nod or shake of the head here and there. On the night I saw it, Richard plucked an audience member to play an assassin and then gently mocked his slowness in finding the young princes. But there was little audience mockery in this adaptation, it was all very genial and inclusive.
The gentle humour of this adaptation is one of its strengths – Carding’s fluid performance is peppered with off-the-cuff wit blended seamlessly into Richard III’s character. She carries the whole thing with aplomb, and does so better than most Shakespeare ensemble casts I’ve seen. In fact, she perfectly captures the wicked but engaging character of Richard III.
NAPA INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL, KARACHI
DAWN, Published Mar 20, 2018 07:04am
Richard loves Richard
PEERZADA SALMAN
It takes exceptional talent and some out-of-the-box thinking for a single actor to stay on stage for an hour and keep the audience glued to their seats, listening to every word that the character utters, even if a major chunk of the audience is not familiar with the text used by the actor.
It happened on Sunday night when Emily Carding played, nay reinterpreted, Shakespeare’s Richard III all by herself in the National Academy of Performing Arts’ (Napa) Zia Mohyeddin theatre.
But wait? Was she alone on stage? No. Before she began portraying Richard III, she invited, in certain cases, got hold of, more than 20 members of the audience to sit in the chairs placed on the stage. She turned them into the play’s characters. For example, King Edward IV sat on the extreme left chair, and Lady Anne Neville was sitting in the hall, right in front of the actor so that Richard could address her while looking straight into her eyes. Once that was taken care of, the play, directed by Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir, began.
How did it begin? For a couple of minutes, there was eerie silence in the hall. Carding sat in her revolving chair, looking at the rest of the characters with unwavering concentration, as if she had known them for a long, long time. Once she managed to get the right kind of ambience for her performance, she started to say her lines as Richard: “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this son of York...”
It was obvious by now that Carding interacted with the other (mute) characters by saying Richard’s lines not expecting a response from them. So, what she did was that she would approach each one of them, when there was a need for approaching them, and gesture them to stand up or follow her instructions. For example, Richard steps down the stage and walks towards the audience to convince Anne of his love. Anne (a flummoxed theatre lover) follows Richard’s instruction rather gingerly.
Richard III is the story of a scheming man who leaves no stone unturned to become king. He hankers after the English throne even if he has to kill his brother, which he does, and killing people is no big deal for him. He is a bitter person. The bitterness also stems from the fact that he has a deformity (hunchback) that makes him feel ugly. And yet, he says simple but loaded lines such as “Richard loves Richard, that is, I and I.”
This is where Carding’s performance was so absorbing to watch on Sunday. Yes, there is a fair degree of maliciousness to Richard. Yes, he is an abominable creature. Yes, he is greedy and wants power come what may. But Carding also shows the human, a bit vulnerable, side to the character. She doesn’t go overboard with his out-and-out villainous mannerisms. The audience can see a man (played by a woman, interestingly) who can emote without being too emotional. Therefore, while the actor’s performance was top-notch, it is her interpretation of the character, for which a great deal of credit should go to the director, which needs to be commended. Only, if the audience that had come to see the play, were familiar with the text!
Richard III was part of Napa’s ongoing international theatre and music festival.
Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2018
EDINBURGH FRINGE 2017
SG Fringe *****
Richard III (A One-Woman Show) *****Posted by Martin Miller
Emily Carding welcomes her audience in a plain black suit, white shirt, and red tie. Her hair is slicked back against her head, and she moves with a hunched limp. She welcomes the audience as old friends, the Duke of Buckingham, the Duke of Clarence, Lady Anne, before seating the remained of the audience in a round circle. Her composure is measured, manipulative, and utterly masterful: quintessentially Richard III.
“Richard III (A One Woman Show)” is a subtle, lean, and controlled adaptation of the Shakespeare play. Taking place over an hour, Carding’s Richard croons over and cajoles the audience. Having established audience plants for each of the major characters in the play, Carding impressively improvises around the script. A wide eyed nod or nervous laugh from an audience member is seized upon by Carding, an affirmation of Richard’s machinations.
The deceptive genius of this structure is the emphasis it places on Richard’s character. Stripping the character to his Machiavellian core, Richard is hypnotically manipulative and, at times, acerbically funny. While employing the murderers of the Duke of Clarence, Carding turned to the latter’s audience plant and told him to stick his fingers in his ears; “oh shoosh Clarence, la la la.”
It is easy to imagine where this play could go wrong. An enthusiastic audience, or an overly quiet one, could disturb the calm of a lesser performer. Yet Carding handles her audience with a seasoned confidence, both as a masterful storyteller and a confident interpreter of Shakespeare’s play. This is a performance for solo dramaphile, the romantic couple, or the excitable festival group.
“Richard III (A One Woman Show)” is theatrical delight from a performer at the top of her craft. It is a festival essential, and not one to be missed.
Freddie Alexander
ORACLE OF FILM *****
Richard III: The Review
Posted by lukebbttOctober 5, 2017
HomeTheatre Company: Brite Theatre
Cast: Emily Carding
Plot: Bitter humpback Richard of Gloucester (Carding) plots against the throne, using anyone and everyone as a pawn in a cruel game.
The audience are ferried into a dark room. Two rows of chairs facing each other present them, creating an instant breaking down of your personal space. In the distance, sits Emily Carding, watching us from the shadows, in the role she has been performing for what feels like an eternity. We sit and wait for her to decide when the show begins, the minutes stretching into what feels like hours. It proves one point: we are all under her control.
Thus begins a telling of Richard III like never before. The familiar beats are still there with a loathing Duke hating upon the crown and plotting against the throne. Every new character is essentially a red shirt, a person waiting to be thrown under the bus, in order to get Richard ever closer to his unwavering desire. Yet with Emily Carding’s one woman telling of the iconic play, the dread of the story is multiplied tenfold. Lacking a supporting cast to bounce off of, Carding employs the audience to play each part. Armed with placards designed to dangle from the audience’s necks, she begins her performance by selecting which audience members should play whom. The tension in the room is almost unbearable, as Carding circles her waiting victims, wondering if you will be gifted with playing a potential bride, an unwitting sibling or a irksome bastard heir. For one, it proves the point that this really is a one character show. The play holds up surprisingly well, Carding able to carry the story onwards even when her supporting cast are too petrified to speak up. If anything, the story is liberated with this freedom, no longer weighed down with the need to develop anyone but the principal player. And as you realise you are becoming the supporting cast, the intimacy of the story becomes painfully clear. You are now the victims of the events of this story, creating an experience arguably more immersive than any that have come before it. The tension fills the room, fear pounding in your eardrums. When Richard III cracks a joke about taking down the King, you laugh, partially at the well-timed quip, but also to save your own skin. When you are not in her cross-hairs, you are the bully’s best friend, laughing along with the insults, praying that worming up to her means that you might escape her wraith. You probably won’t. My palms were sweaty throughout the entire performance and you cannot help but attempt to recall a theatre experience that has the ability to have such an effect on you. You aren’t just watching the play, but wrapped up in it. Theatre shows are often called roller-coaster rides, but Brite Theatre have created a Richard III that genuinely feels like one. You are strapped into a ride you cannot escape until it is over and every moment of silence only adds to the fear of what is to come. Also, like a roller-coaster ride, as soon as it rocks to an end, you will likely rejoin the back of the queue to await another equally pulse-pounding go.
Immersive experiences like this require an actor brave enough to handle the work. So much could go wrong. A Lady Anne might refuse to meekly accept a proposal; a dead body might refuse to stay silent. But there is never one moment where it feels like Emily Carding is losing control. You almost want to heckle her, because you are sure that she has already prepared a smart put-down to put you back in your place. However, it is so much more than simply watching a host, carefully making sure the immersive tour stays on track. When the play needs to fall back on some good old-fashioned acting, Carding delivers. Even when she is silent, she is captivating, staring into each member’s eyes for an uncomfortably long time, gloriously clawing the most atmosphere out of a scene. The ending is an emotional blast, the kind of spectacle that you go to Shakespeare plays to see. There is also the inevitable feminist debates that come up with the casting of a female in a title male role. Surprisingly, only in afterthought does it become a discussion worth having. The truth is that as soon as Carding steps on-stage, you forget all about the rules of gender. Emily Carding is playing Richard III and what more is needed to be said on the matter. The performance is incredible; nuff said. It is unshowy feminism at its best, the kind of debate that is best served by a knowing nod, rather than a philosophical rambling. Talking about it almost robs it of its effect. It is the kind of new wave theatre that should be accepted, not argued with. And with shows that are as unashamedly confident as this one, it doesn’t seem like a massive stretch of the imagination to picture this trend as the done thing.
Final Verdict: There are many Richard III’s but never up so close. A gripping personal experience that emotionally shakes you. A sadly rare experience these days.
Five Stars
CYGNET THEATRE
REMOTE GOAT *****
Review of Richard III (A One Woman Show)
"Complicit with a killer king"
by Avril Silk for remotegoat on 06/10/17
Tonight at the Cygnet Theatre, Brite Theatre’s Emily Carding, in ‘Richard III (A One Woman Show)’, gave the audience a masterclass in the art of tyranny. We were pressed into service as pawns, accomplices and victims of a monstrous ambition, laced with casual cruelty, black humour and killer jokes. As Richard murdered his way to the throne, he used every emotional trick in the book to ensure we were royally entertained. Emily played on our sympathy, our fears, our them-and-us divisiveness and our shameful relief when the eye of Sauron moves to someone else. We were mesmerised like rabbits in the headlights, co-operating with the unfolding drama within the conventional audience/performer parameters, whilst allowing ourselves to be bit-players with all the discomfort that, I imagine, accompanies being gulled into complicity with an assassin.
Director Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir and Emily Carding ruthlessly shook the original script into submission. Extraneous characters and diversionary dialogue were all given the chop, and the result is spare, elegant and lucid; cleverly constructed so, short of a bit-player going nuclear, Emily can keep the story moving along with tremendous wit and resourcefulness. So if one of us said, ‘Yes, my lord,’ when the original character said ‘No,’ she was ready with an inspired response to keep things on track. And a really uncooperative spear-carrier could always be bumped off earlier rather than later…
A bare minimum of rudimentary props, no special effects or elaborate costume changes, simple lighting and a basic set frame a maximum of dazzling talent. Emily Carding was exceptional. Her emotional range is outstanding. It is not enough to describe her performance as edgy – it was so much more than that. There were times I felt that danger and madness stalked the stage; such fear must overshadow any encounter with a psychopath. I use the word advisedly; whereas a sociopath might achieve the same body count, they would do so from mental chaos. Emily’s Richard began with a clarity of thought and purpose that ensured success. Having created a monster, she then revealed glimmers of humanity, as Richard faced defeat and death, that elicited a modicum of reluctant compassion.
Events in the White House and North Korea frequently make me wonder what it is like to be at the beck and call of a narcissistic, unpredictable despot. It is a great compliment to Emily Carding to say that tonight I had such a sense of it that I imagine I felt like Sean Spicer must have done.
The Q and A session afterwards was extremely interesting – difficult to switch from menacing monarch to herself, but Emily did so with wit and intelligence, illuminating the process that led to one of the best plays I have ever seen. Catch it if you possibly can: it’s on in Truro’s Old Bakery on October 6th and 7th and at the Hope Theatre, London on November 12th and 13th.
REMOTE GOAT *****
Review of Richard III (A One Woman Show)
"Complicit with a killer king"
by Avril Silk for remotegoat on 06/10/17
Tonight at the Cygnet Theatre, Brite Theatre’s Emily Carding, in ‘Richard III (A One Woman Show)’, gave the audience a masterclass in the art of tyranny. We were pressed into service as pawns, accomplices and victims of a monstrous ambition, laced with casual cruelty, black humour and killer jokes. As Richard murdered his way to the throne, he used every emotional trick in the book to ensure we were royally entertained. Emily played on our sympathy, our fears, our them-and-us divisiveness and our shameful relief when the eye of Sauron moves to someone else. We were mesmerised like rabbits in the headlights, co-operating with the unfolding drama within the conventional audience/performer parameters, whilst allowing ourselves to be bit-players with all the discomfort that, I imagine, accompanies being gulled into complicity with an assassin.
Director Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir and Emily Carding ruthlessly shook the original script into submission. Extraneous characters and diversionary dialogue were all given the chop, and the result is spare, elegant and lucid; cleverly constructed so, short of a bit-player going nuclear, Emily can keep the story moving along with tremendous wit and resourcefulness. So if one of us said, ‘Yes, my lord,’ when the original character said ‘No,’ she was ready with an inspired response to keep things on track. And a really uncooperative spear-carrier could always be bumped off earlier rather than later…
A bare minimum of rudimentary props, no special effects or elaborate costume changes, simple lighting and a basic set frame a maximum of dazzling talent. Emily Carding was exceptional. Her emotional range is outstanding. It is not enough to describe her performance as edgy – it was so much more than that. There were times I felt that danger and madness stalked the stage; such fear must overshadow any encounter with a psychopath. I use the word advisedly; whereas a sociopath might achieve the same body count, they would do so from mental chaos. Emily’s Richard began with a clarity of thought and purpose that ensured success. Having created a monster, she then revealed glimmers of humanity, as Richard faced defeat and death, that elicited a modicum of reluctant compassion.
Events in the White House and North Korea frequently make me wonder what it is like to be at the beck and call of a narcissistic, unpredictable despot. It is a great compliment to Emily Carding to say that tonight I had such a sense of it that I imagine I felt like Sean Spicer must have done.
The Q and A session afterwards was extremely interesting – difficult to switch from menacing monarch to herself, but Emily did so with wit and intelligence, illuminating the process that led to one of the best plays I have ever seen. Catch it if you possibly can: it’s on in Truro’s Old Bakery on October 6th and 7th and at the Hope Theatre, London on November 12th and 13th.
BRIGHTON FRINGE 2017
FRINGE GURU ****
Richard III (a one-woman show)
I was only expecting to review this show, not to play a part in it – but this is no ordinary production of Richard III. We the audience are each warmly greeted by Richard of Gloucester, hanging name-cards around our necks, thus assigning us roles and seats. Soon we are all assembled as the Royal Court of London, sitting horseshoed around Richard's wooden table. Stickers marked 'DEAD' are ominously arranged along the table's edge.
Richard pours himself some red wine. Then silence, and strong eye contact. Richard, played by Emily Carding, is looking around the room; testing the crowd, drawing us in, almost as a good standup would do. Some decisions are live, are we all ready? The excitement builds.
Then the play begins in earnest. Richard is swilling back the wine, dreaming, complaining and scheming. As Richard proceeds to slaughter most of the audience one by one, his ambitions are made clear; and we the crowd are invited (nay, commanded) to act out our part in the proceedings, as the 'DEAD' stickers are handed out. We are dying like flies...
This hour-long script runs along at quite a pace, though we stay true to the Bard's telling. A really enjoyable hour it is too, well-conceived, well-written and flawlessly delivered. Whilst this play is not presented as a comedy, there is a sprinkling of well-timed ad libs, and moments where we are all smiling; Carding isn't taking it all too seriously.
By the time we are into the final soliloquy, the solemn delivery brings us back to the tragic, and we almost feel sorry for the monster and his folly. It's such a moving performance: Carding brings this Shakespearean character's death throes right into the room, and we are left with the feeling that Richard III has spoken his last words today.
I'm looking forward to more from Brite Theatre. For now, see this if you can get a seat… and choose that seat carefully.
FRINGE REVIEW - OUTSTANDING
Low Down
Emily Carding’s one-woman Richard III has tour-de-forced the world it seems and returns here after debuting last July. Directed by Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir and lit plainly, it’s a wondrously inviting thing to be lured to your death. Till May 21st.
Review
The magic of speed-reading Shakespeare’s second-longest play is to slow it down. Emily Carding’s one-woman Richard III has tour-de-forced the world it seems and returns here after debuting last July. Directed by Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir and lit plainly, it’s a wondrously inviting thing to be lured to your death. Twelve roles are assigned to the first audience who roll in, then afterwards you’re one of the quickly-dead (I was already-dispatched Henry VI). A simple table with a bottle of wine and glass, which Carding does drink from, creates all the space as chairs are traversed and fronted. In effect it’s a kind of improvised thrust stage. Carding’s Richard eyeballs everyone. Such participation is a superbly adroit manner of engaging an audience about the numbers of deaths Richard will encompass without boring, blurring or bamboozling them.
This is Shakespeare, bar a few ad-libs and tiny asides. We’re treated to a languorous delivery of the famous opening speech as Carling gathers force. She never barks, one hand in her pocket as if withered, puling out each member with their assigned role, wooing and weaponing them – the hapless Elizabeth with a dagger really a water-pistol to shoot Richard with. Occasionally a participant says for instance ‘I consent’ but mainly a nod or derided eyebrow – Carlings mocks these – are all that’s required.
Filleting out just Richard is still challenging: Richard has so many lines. Carling has to glance over the princes but does it with a pin-point deadliness alighting on Richard’s creepy solicitude at one key point. They that are wise so young never shall live long. The one death built-up is Buckingham’s and Russell a script-writer is in this performance fawned and frighted on. Richard’s pre-coronation devotions are encompassed in a single prayer-book and Buckingham’s declension is harried with startling force as carling tops her vigour with furies ‘I am not in the giving vein today’.
The single scene not fleshed seems to be the court chamber meeting where Richard lures and dispatches two enemies. This is gestured at, and would have been difficult to encompass even in a few well-chosen lines.
The final night where Richard’s haunted by all those he’s killed has Carding eyeball all of the audience, here mute in accusation as the ghosts in the paly intone their ‘despair and die’ mantra with variants. This too as Richard seems to contemplate suicide, is slowed to the pitch of a theatre, Carding conveying superbly the horror and psychic destruction Richard’s visited upon himself. She takes arms and dies with harness on her back twitching in a manner you’ll have to see for yourself. This is an outstanding distillation of an exceptionally prolix if often brilliant early Shakespeare history drama. It could not really be executed more compellingly.
Published May 19, 2017 by Simon Jenner
FRINGE GURU ****
Richard III (a one-woman show)
I was only expecting to review this show, not to play a part in it – but this is no ordinary production of Richard III. We the audience are each warmly greeted by Richard of Gloucester, hanging name-cards around our necks, thus assigning us roles and seats. Soon we are all assembled as the Royal Court of London, sitting horseshoed around Richard's wooden table. Stickers marked 'DEAD' are ominously arranged along the table's edge.
Richard pours himself some red wine. Then silence, and strong eye contact. Richard, played by Emily Carding, is looking around the room; testing the crowd, drawing us in, almost as a good standup would do. Some decisions are live, are we all ready? The excitement builds.
Then the play begins in earnest. Richard is swilling back the wine, dreaming, complaining and scheming. As Richard proceeds to slaughter most of the audience one by one, his ambitions are made clear; and we the crowd are invited (nay, commanded) to act out our part in the proceedings, as the 'DEAD' stickers are handed out. We are dying like flies...
This hour-long script runs along at quite a pace, though we stay true to the Bard's telling. A really enjoyable hour it is too, well-conceived, well-written and flawlessly delivered. Whilst this play is not presented as a comedy, there is a sprinkling of well-timed ad libs, and moments where we are all smiling; Carding isn't taking it all too seriously.
By the time we are into the final soliloquy, the solemn delivery brings us back to the tragic, and we almost feel sorry for the monster and his folly. It's such a moving performance: Carding brings this Shakespearean character's death throes right into the room, and we are left with the feeling that Richard III has spoken his last words today.
I'm looking forward to more from Brite Theatre. For now, see this if you can get a seat… and choose that seat carefully.
FRINGE REVIEW - OUTSTANDING
Low Down
Emily Carding’s one-woman Richard III has tour-de-forced the world it seems and returns here after debuting last July. Directed by Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir and lit plainly, it’s a wondrously inviting thing to be lured to your death. Till May 21st.
Review
The magic of speed-reading Shakespeare’s second-longest play is to slow it down. Emily Carding’s one-woman Richard III has tour-de-forced the world it seems and returns here after debuting last July. Directed by Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir and lit plainly, it’s a wondrously inviting thing to be lured to your death. Twelve roles are assigned to the first audience who roll in, then afterwards you’re one of the quickly-dead (I was already-dispatched Henry VI). A simple table with a bottle of wine and glass, which Carding does drink from, creates all the space as chairs are traversed and fronted. In effect it’s a kind of improvised thrust stage. Carding’s Richard eyeballs everyone. Such participation is a superbly adroit manner of engaging an audience about the numbers of deaths Richard will encompass without boring, blurring or bamboozling them.
This is Shakespeare, bar a few ad-libs and tiny asides. We’re treated to a languorous delivery of the famous opening speech as Carling gathers force. She never barks, one hand in her pocket as if withered, puling out each member with their assigned role, wooing and weaponing them – the hapless Elizabeth with a dagger really a water-pistol to shoot Richard with. Occasionally a participant says for instance ‘I consent’ but mainly a nod or derided eyebrow – Carlings mocks these – are all that’s required.
Filleting out just Richard is still challenging: Richard has so many lines. Carling has to glance over the princes but does it with a pin-point deadliness alighting on Richard’s creepy solicitude at one key point. They that are wise so young never shall live long. The one death built-up is Buckingham’s and Russell a script-writer is in this performance fawned and frighted on. Richard’s pre-coronation devotions are encompassed in a single prayer-book and Buckingham’s declension is harried with startling force as carling tops her vigour with furies ‘I am not in the giving vein today’.
The single scene not fleshed seems to be the court chamber meeting where Richard lures and dispatches two enemies. This is gestured at, and would have been difficult to encompass even in a few well-chosen lines.
The final night where Richard’s haunted by all those he’s killed has Carding eyeball all of the audience, here mute in accusation as the ghosts in the paly intone their ‘despair and die’ mantra with variants. This too as Richard seems to contemplate suicide, is slowed to the pitch of a theatre, Carding conveying superbly the horror and psychic destruction Richard’s visited upon himself. She takes arms and dies with harness on her back twitching in a manner you’ll have to see for yourself. This is an outstanding distillation of an exceptionally prolix if often brilliant early Shakespeare history drama. It could not really be executed more compellingly.
Published May 19, 2017 by Simon Jenner
One of Exeunt's Best Regional Theatre 2016 picks: "My drag king trifecta is completed by Emily Carding’s one-woman Richard III, a slick, sparse remedy to the overblown and over-rated Fiennes / Goold production." Tracey Sinclair
THE STAGE
Richard III (a One-Woman Show) review at Sweet Dukebox, Brighton
– ‘a dazzling performance’Emily Carding in Richard III (a One-Woman Show) at Sweet Dukebox, Brighton review by Tracey Sinclair - Jun 11, 2016 The Stage.
Emily Carding and Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir’s adaptation of Richard III is a smart, sparse, stripped back version of the text built around Carding’s utterly compelling performance.
With slicked back hair and a business suit, this is a thoroughly modern monarch – he celebrates wooing Anne with a selfie and gets battle status updates on his iPhone, spinning around the compact space on an office swivel chair. Veering between oleaginous charm and gleeful malice as he ascends to power, then disintegrating into paranoia once he has seized it, this feels like a properly dangerous Richard, made even more disconcerting when played out at such close quarters.
The audience are allocated the other key roles, a strategy which has the potential to go awry, but luckily we have little to do other than occasionally stand and (mostly) silently react, and Carding dispels any awkwardness with well-placed asides.
The piece works better in some scenes than others. The winning of Anne and her subsequent discarding are surprisingly effective when she is rendered speechless, but the pre-battle set up where Richard’s victims haunt him feels a little flat when we cannot hear their accusations. Paring back the text to one speaker means inevitably some of its richness is lost: with everyone else reduced to mute players, you realise how much of the original’s dynamism stems from Richard’s cleverly crafted interaction with others, his verbal dexterity a reaction to those around him. But overall, the approach pays off, creating a potent distillation of one of theatre’s greatest villains.
Verdict
Slick, slyly funny solo Shakespeare featuring a dazzling performance ****
FRINGE NYC REVIEWS
CURTAIN UP
*****
Richard III (A One Woman Show)
I've been covering the Fringe for a decade now, and when shows work well it's because the creators understand what the Fringe does best-giving artists a chance to experiment and try things which wouldn't (initially) work even in an off-off Broadway environment. But there are some shows which I'd like to see make the jump even if I can't quite see how a traditional theater would manage them, and the production of Richard III (A One Woman Show), which previously played in the Prague and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, fits into this category. Emily Carding plays the infamous Richard III with insight and intelligence, and nails his unique blend of malice, sociopathy, and charm. . . but what makes the show truly shine is its interactive quality, as the audience members, lined up on both sides of the long playing area, are led to their seats by Richard himself (playing to the rest of the audience with quips and jokes the whole time), where some of them are given identification tags to indicate their roles in the play (as brother Clarence, Lord Hastings, Buckingham, and so on). Richard then goes through a truncated version of the play, using the characters as various "props" for his monologues. Done poorly, interactive theater of this kind can be awkward and frustrating, especially if the audience members aren't up to what's being asked-and in our group, a couple of them were perilously close to wanting to upstage Richard themselves. But Carding handles the variety of reactions masterfully throughout, maintaining focus on Richard and his story, and about halfway through, it struck me that this is the essence of the play to begin with-Richard is constantly breaking the fourth wall as it is (the play has among the most monologues of any Shakespearean work), so this production is really the logical extension of that reality. And both Carding and director/adapter Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir do exceptionally well in maintaining pace and energy. I don't know how a larger venue would handle something like this; it's hard to see it being done any other way than on a long carpet with an office chair and maybe an audience of forty. But it's good enough that it deserves to get a second look off-Broadway, and in my opinion Richard III (A One Woman Show) is one of the best Fringe shows in 2016. At Venue #10. One hour. [Wilson]
THE HIGHLIGHTER
*****
It Only Takes One – If the One is Emily CardingPosted by WSNPRODUCTION on AUGUST 17, 2016By Hailey Nuthals, Arts Editor
There can be nothing that tickles the playful, spiteful spirit more than a one-woman production of a Shakespeare show. For plays that were originally done with casts entirely of men, it is supremely satisfying to switch the trend as far around as possible and do away with all the extraneous cast members. To be sure, it’s also supremely difficult, particularly for the play in question. “Richard III” has more than 50 characters, including various ghosts, citizens, and pages. Yet still, actress Emily Carding, under the direction of Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir, took a clever adaptation by Sigfusdottir and pushed on with the project. The production was originally developed in a residency at Tjarnarbio Tehatery in Reykjavik, Iceland, and premiered at the Prague Fringe Festival in 2015, where it won the Creative Award, Inspiration Award and Performance Award.
Sigfusdottir cleverly dodges the issue of the innumerable characters with a simple fix: as the audience is led into the theater, Richard (Carding) himself assigns a handful of lucky visitors a namecard with a string, to be hung around the next so that it is clearly visible. Chairs are arranged in two long lines facing in towards each other, so each audience member can see the others. Each of the key characters – King Edward IV, King Henry VI, their queens, the dukes, Lady Anne, and a handful of others – is now represented in body of someone in the crowd. Carding then effortlessly interacts with the characters as if they were actors themselves, all in on the storyline. Without anyone else saying a word, she uses body language, verbal expressions, and in general superb acting to imply what the dialogue of the other characters is supposed to be.
The resulting interactions are hilarious. Bemused “characters” act their part, and all the while, the dastardly villain Richard III limps around the room, occasionally using a rolling swivel chair for dramatic (or comedic) effect. As the body count rises with Richard’s ascent to the throne, deceased characters are slapped with a sticker that simply reads, in bold red letters, “DEAD.” Carding’s Richard is a witty, conniving, elegant creature. As a whole, the production works perfectly, with the rise of the duke and fall of the king coming together in a show that never lags for a second, never bores for a single moment. Not a modicum of the show was lost – not the drama of the battles, the wiles of the murders, or the soul-shaking haunting of the villain.
Between Sigfusdottir’s expert adaptation and Carding’s flawless acting, the show was an absolute success. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime show every night, in a way that is seldom achieved in any production. Just as Shakespeare is when it’s done best, it was the most comic of tragedies, the most human of villains. At this rate, we may not need men in a production of Shakespeare ever again.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
**** (according to Showscore)
[...] Less impressive was at least one clumsy cast member in Thursday’s performance of “Richard III” (through Saturday at Alpha Omega). I was noticeably stiff as the young Duke of York, despite having nothing to do besides being killed. Yet there I was, among two dozen audience members assigned to play the other characters opposite Emily Carding, who takes on the title role in this British import.
We did not have to memorize lines or even repeat them, given that Ms. Carding essentially used us as human props in the hourlong monologue adaptation she has devised with the director, Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir. Still, it’s an entertaining way to dress up a solo outing, and Ms. Carding’s coolly psychotic king has a Tilda Swinton-esque flair.
NY THEATRE GUIDE
****
Theatre Review: ‘Richard III (A One Woman Show)’ at FringeNYCPosted By: Patricia Continoon: August 17, 2016
Rather than waiting to deliver those famous opening lines regarding “the winter of our discontent,” Richard III (Emily Carding) greets her audience as they file into the new Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company performing space. Carding divides her subjects into two rows facing each other, and then goes on to recruit them to play murder victims, assassins, royals, courtiers, and soldiers. However, the makeshift cast of Richard III (A One Woman Show) need not be off script. There is snark but no embarrassment, for Shakespeare’s most calculating villain does all of the talking while keeping the deadly matter of succession fun.
. . .[Carding] does all of the talking while keeping the deadly matter of succession fun.
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In addition to being a good host, Richard is also a great storyteller, surmising his involvement in the War of the Roses in an hour’s time. Though retaining the Lord Protector’s limp and twisted posture, Carding’s Richard is dressed in a nondescript black suit. Androgyny is an appropriate and extremely creative choice for a character consumed by ambition.
Director Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir adds strong modern-day touches, such as an office chair with wheels substituting as the throne. The corporate theme continues with audience members recruited for bigger parts wearing “Hello: My Name Is” tags with their character’s name. When someone is dispensed with, Richard slaps a white mailing label marked “DEAD.” Perhaps not so surprisingly, Richard uses a cellphone to take a selfie, which he calls a “shadow,” and track the future Henry VII’s invasion. The Bible is Shakespeare’s play.
A monologue version of Richard III works well to start with because he always lets the audience in on what he’s thinking. With Richard III (A One Woman Show), he allows them to get closer…whether they want to or not…and it’s okay, because it also means getting closer to Shakespeare.
THEATRE IS EASY
****
Richard III (A One Woman Show)By William Shakespeare; Adapted by Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir and Emily Carding
Directed by Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir
Produced by Brite Theater
Part of the 2016 New York International Fringe Festival
Off Off Broadway, Solo Show
Runs through 8.20.16
VENUE #10: Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, 70 East 4th Street by Alexandra Holden on 8.18.16
BOTTOM LINE: An interactive journey through one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies.
Few theatre companies can pull off Shakespeare’s titanic tragedy Richard III. Even fewer actors can do justice to the part of the regicidal Duke of Gloucester. Miraculously, Brite Theater and Emily Carding have managed to do just that in—of all places—a white, thin-walled dance studio in the depths of the East Village.
This highly-condensed version of Richard III begins with the Duke herself (Emily Carding) helping audience members to their respective seats and assigning them the other roles of the play. That’s right--we make up the English court in this modernized interpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy. A very minimal production, the set consists only of a single black rolling office chair, a table with a glass of wine, a prayer book, little stickers with the word “DEAD” scrawled on them in red marker, and the chairs that audience members sit in. This isRichard III stripped down to its barest element—the connection between audience and actor.
When Richard and the audience click, it’s electric. Emily Carding has the power to change the tone of the room with just the look of an eye. The remnants of her powerful touch are palpable for hours after contact, as I learned after she declared me “the dead King Henry” and slapped a “DEAD” sticker onto my shirt. I was a little awkward at first, but Carding handled it with elegance and cheeky wit.
Despite her talents, Carding is presented a challenge by such an intense breakdown of the fourth wall. The play has a rocky lift-off, with audience members potentially wondering how much participation is too much participation. At times, it feels like Carding is dragging us along in the play rather than taking the journey withus. As the show goes on, Carding manages to navigate these awkward moments with precision and grace—likely due to the audience members easing into their roles. Her Richard is charming, sinister, conniving, guilt-ridden, and utterly pathetic all at once. This performance is everything that we would want of one of the bard’s greatest villains.
Though it has a bit of a shaky start, Richard III (a one-woman show) is an undoubtedly unique ride through this classic tragedy.
INFINITE BODY
FRINGE BENEFITS: Emily Carding--and you!--in "Richard III"
Instead of paying actors to play Shakespearean roles, Emily Carding gets them to work for free. By that, I mean most of the people in her small audience, each one sporting a lanyard ID--her "Duke of Buckingham," her "Lady Anne"--and occasional looks of uncertainty as Carding's masterful Richard III shares cynical confidences with one or gruffly orders around another. As the tale of bloody power grabs unfolds, condensed to under an hour, no one in attendance--even those without named roles--can fully relax. We know that Carding's Richard might suddenly lock eyes with us, requiring something of us, find us wanting.
We are not safe, Clarence. We are not safe.
What's more, Clarence, we can easily be offed by little more than an arsenal of office supplies.
An anticipated highlight of this summer's FringeNYC, Brite Theater's Richard III (a one-woman show) comes to New York bearing awards from the Fringes of Prague and Edinburgh. And, by Richard's will and Carding's skill, it will conquer in its US premiere. The set-up of the new-ish Alpha Omega studio on East 4th Street provides just enough space for Carding to pace or impatiently push off on the wheels of her office chair while maintaining intimacy and a tyrant's grip on her audience.
This Richard's world of scheming and endless violence is our own, where battleground reports come via text message and leaders can instantly document their narcissism with selfies.
The narrow runner of space between two rows of seating--accommodating perhaps 25-30 people--is charged with the energy of Richard's malevolence and excess. Directed by Brite's founder Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir, Carding interprets Shakespeare's Richard--a man of visible disability--with bearing and even speech that I'm greatly tempted to call dance. Dark business suit and skinny red tie askew, her body seems, at once, frozen and propelled in multiple directions even when still. And her speech, if failing in rhythm, moves with varying, unpredictable angles of attack. Deep into the performance, Carding seems to drop into a flow state from which she yields improvised snark--snapping at an unexpectedly stubborn "Lord Grey," Well now I know what you are getting killed for!--or minute, quite convincing facial expressions of fear and disintegration.
Make Richard III (a one-woman show) one of your priority stops along the Fringe.
PRAGUE FRINGE REVIEWS
FRINGY BITS
Richard III (Kavárna 3+1, May 22-25) 'This production blew me away. I have never seen a more sinister, terrifying Richard III than this one. The novelty of a woman playing the role is utterly irrelevant two minutes into the show. What happens in this small space at Kavárna is a brutal tale of jealousy, lies, treachery and murder. Audience members are assigned roles and pulled into the horror that is Richard’s world. The power of Shakespeare’s poetry is on full display here, making Richard’s every line a tribute to his toxic brilliance. I was lucky enough to be a mute Buckingham and so a partner and witness to Richard’s pure evil, and I felt part of the action, a player in this hellish world. The very simplicity of the production is its strength. This is a bravura performance. The control she exercises over the audience participants is simply an extension of Richard’s control over the players in his deadly game. Have I gushed enough? This performance is a masterpiece. See it.' Michael Calcott, Fringy Bits May 23 2015
PRAGUE POST
Richard III by Brite Theater
'You will never quite think about Richard III the same way ever again. Emily Carding’s powerful performance as the king in one of the Bard’s bloodiest plays is staggering, not because of the actress’s undisputed powerhouse performance, but because the approach is multi-textured, difficult to pin down and cannot be easy to perform, although she somehow manages to do it really well.
The texture includes audience participation, cell phones, metatextuality and of course the hour-long monologue that is not your average soliloquy. Now, audience participation is always a big risk for the performer, but as Richard’s fellow conspirators and fellow victims, their parts are essential to the experience, and luckily Carding handles the overeager, overacting participants exactly right: by mostly ignoring them and casting her steely eyes toward the rest, putting the fear of God into us.
The indisputable highlight of the hour is when Richard unexpectedly stops speaking, and every second Carling holds the silence brings us closer and closer to the slaughterous ruler — even though by that stage half the audience have been killed off already as flippantly as Virginia Woolf eliminated Mrs. Ramsay fromTo the Lighthouse. You don’t need to know any Shakespeare to realize this show is electric.' André Crous, Prague Post May 24 2015
Brite Theater seems to consist of director Kolbrun Sigfusdottir and performer Emily Carding who collaborated to create an astonishing take on Richard III. The fact that there are only two of them is a very good thing in this case because the Kaverna 3+1 venue is microscopic, seating maybe 23 with a stage smaller than a twin bed and therefore there is no room for anyone else. As you walk in and choose a seat you may find yourself assigned to be a character in the play.
This may require you to be called up on stage, where you will have no lines, but are part of the action. From the top of the play Ms. Carding blows through the fourth wall confronting us other characters where they sit, or bringing them up on stage or assigning them to kill others.
To do this she roams from the stage down the center aisle with malice aforethought and although she is the only voice, this is not a monologue, this is a play and we are players. With Richard being who he is, many of the audience found themselves wearing stickers at the end of the play that labeled them “Dead”.
This concept works because Ms. Carding is a serious Shakespearean actor and Ms. Kolbrun knows when and where to place her. Iambic pentameter can be a tough meal to chew on, but coming from this show, it is clear and goes down like melted butter.
There is no set because there is nowhere to put one. The costume design is a man’s suit and tie and the show is performed in house lighting because almost everyone in the room is part of the cast. Somehow, with the most minimal of materials, this show is complete theatre. Joan Kane, FringeReview May 25 2015
DC THEATRE SCENE
There is a one-woman Richard III here which boils down the play to a psycho’s sick “To Do List,” and we, the audience members, crammed into a space about the size of a cell, become her playthings and her victims. From the moment actress Emily Carding — think the icy, androgynous Annie Lennox — greets the audience one by one and seats us giving each a sign with our character’s name, she unleashes upon our heads all the machinations of this sinister mind. She watches for every flicker and give-away weakness, then pounces, using us to her advantage and to feed her dramatically – and she can go even farther with this to make it even richer in feeling as scene rather than monologue. When one of the characters dies, she keeps a tally by slapping a sticker on the designated audience member, “Dead.” Putting Richard in a woman’s body makes dramatic sense and justifies the character’s arc that is all about the need to over-compensate and be ballsier than any guy. In this venue as in Richard’s court there is no exit. Susan Galbraith, DC Theatre Scene June 3 2015
FRINGE THEATREFEST BARNSTAPLE REVIEWS
THE STAGE
Richard III (a One-Woman Show) review at Sweet Dukebox, Brighton
– ‘a dazzling performance’Emily Carding in Richard III (a One-Woman Show) at Sweet Dukebox, Brighton review by Tracey Sinclair - Jun 11, 2016 The Stage.
Emily Carding and Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir’s adaptation of Richard III is a smart, sparse, stripped back version of the text built around Carding’s utterly compelling performance.
With slicked back hair and a business suit, this is a thoroughly modern monarch – he celebrates wooing Anne with a selfie and gets battle status updates on his iPhone, spinning around the compact space on an office swivel chair. Veering between oleaginous charm and gleeful malice as he ascends to power, then disintegrating into paranoia once he has seized it, this feels like a properly dangerous Richard, made even more disconcerting when played out at such close quarters.
The audience are allocated the other key roles, a strategy which has the potential to go awry, but luckily we have little to do other than occasionally stand and (mostly) silently react, and Carding dispels any awkwardness with well-placed asides.
The piece works better in some scenes than others. The winning of Anne and her subsequent discarding are surprisingly effective when she is rendered speechless, but the pre-battle set up where Richard’s victims haunt him feels a little flat when we cannot hear their accusations. Paring back the text to one speaker means inevitably some of its richness is lost: with everyone else reduced to mute players, you realise how much of the original’s dynamism stems from Richard’s cleverly crafted interaction with others, his verbal dexterity a reaction to those around him. But overall, the approach pays off, creating a potent distillation of one of theatre’s greatest villains.
Verdict
Slick, slyly funny solo Shakespeare featuring a dazzling performance ****
FRINGE NYC REVIEWS
CURTAIN UP
*****
Richard III (A One Woman Show)
I've been covering the Fringe for a decade now, and when shows work well it's because the creators understand what the Fringe does best-giving artists a chance to experiment and try things which wouldn't (initially) work even in an off-off Broadway environment. But there are some shows which I'd like to see make the jump even if I can't quite see how a traditional theater would manage them, and the production of Richard III (A One Woman Show), which previously played in the Prague and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, fits into this category. Emily Carding plays the infamous Richard III with insight and intelligence, and nails his unique blend of malice, sociopathy, and charm. . . but what makes the show truly shine is its interactive quality, as the audience members, lined up on both sides of the long playing area, are led to their seats by Richard himself (playing to the rest of the audience with quips and jokes the whole time), where some of them are given identification tags to indicate their roles in the play (as brother Clarence, Lord Hastings, Buckingham, and so on). Richard then goes through a truncated version of the play, using the characters as various "props" for his monologues. Done poorly, interactive theater of this kind can be awkward and frustrating, especially if the audience members aren't up to what's being asked-and in our group, a couple of them were perilously close to wanting to upstage Richard themselves. But Carding handles the variety of reactions masterfully throughout, maintaining focus on Richard and his story, and about halfway through, it struck me that this is the essence of the play to begin with-Richard is constantly breaking the fourth wall as it is (the play has among the most monologues of any Shakespearean work), so this production is really the logical extension of that reality. And both Carding and director/adapter Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir do exceptionally well in maintaining pace and energy. I don't know how a larger venue would handle something like this; it's hard to see it being done any other way than on a long carpet with an office chair and maybe an audience of forty. But it's good enough that it deserves to get a second look off-Broadway, and in my opinion Richard III (A One Woman Show) is one of the best Fringe shows in 2016. At Venue #10. One hour. [Wilson]
THE HIGHLIGHTER
*****
It Only Takes One – If the One is Emily CardingPosted by WSNPRODUCTION on AUGUST 17, 2016By Hailey Nuthals, Arts Editor
There can be nothing that tickles the playful, spiteful spirit more than a one-woman production of a Shakespeare show. For plays that were originally done with casts entirely of men, it is supremely satisfying to switch the trend as far around as possible and do away with all the extraneous cast members. To be sure, it’s also supremely difficult, particularly for the play in question. “Richard III” has more than 50 characters, including various ghosts, citizens, and pages. Yet still, actress Emily Carding, under the direction of Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir, took a clever adaptation by Sigfusdottir and pushed on with the project. The production was originally developed in a residency at Tjarnarbio Tehatery in Reykjavik, Iceland, and premiered at the Prague Fringe Festival in 2015, where it won the Creative Award, Inspiration Award and Performance Award.
Sigfusdottir cleverly dodges the issue of the innumerable characters with a simple fix: as the audience is led into the theater, Richard (Carding) himself assigns a handful of lucky visitors a namecard with a string, to be hung around the next so that it is clearly visible. Chairs are arranged in two long lines facing in towards each other, so each audience member can see the others. Each of the key characters – King Edward IV, King Henry VI, their queens, the dukes, Lady Anne, and a handful of others – is now represented in body of someone in the crowd. Carding then effortlessly interacts with the characters as if they were actors themselves, all in on the storyline. Without anyone else saying a word, she uses body language, verbal expressions, and in general superb acting to imply what the dialogue of the other characters is supposed to be.
The resulting interactions are hilarious. Bemused “characters” act their part, and all the while, the dastardly villain Richard III limps around the room, occasionally using a rolling swivel chair for dramatic (or comedic) effect. As the body count rises with Richard’s ascent to the throne, deceased characters are slapped with a sticker that simply reads, in bold red letters, “DEAD.” Carding’s Richard is a witty, conniving, elegant creature. As a whole, the production works perfectly, with the rise of the duke and fall of the king coming together in a show that never lags for a second, never bores for a single moment. Not a modicum of the show was lost – not the drama of the battles, the wiles of the murders, or the soul-shaking haunting of the villain.
Between Sigfusdottir’s expert adaptation and Carding’s flawless acting, the show was an absolute success. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime show every night, in a way that is seldom achieved in any production. Just as Shakespeare is when it’s done best, it was the most comic of tragedies, the most human of villains. At this rate, we may not need men in a production of Shakespeare ever again.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
**** (according to Showscore)
[...] Less impressive was at least one clumsy cast member in Thursday’s performance of “Richard III” (through Saturday at Alpha Omega). I was noticeably stiff as the young Duke of York, despite having nothing to do besides being killed. Yet there I was, among two dozen audience members assigned to play the other characters opposite Emily Carding, who takes on the title role in this British import.
We did not have to memorize lines or even repeat them, given that Ms. Carding essentially used us as human props in the hourlong monologue adaptation she has devised with the director, Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir. Still, it’s an entertaining way to dress up a solo outing, and Ms. Carding’s coolly psychotic king has a Tilda Swinton-esque flair.
NY THEATRE GUIDE
****
Theatre Review: ‘Richard III (A One Woman Show)’ at FringeNYCPosted By: Patricia Continoon: August 17, 2016
Rather than waiting to deliver those famous opening lines regarding “the winter of our discontent,” Richard III (Emily Carding) greets her audience as they file into the new Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company performing space. Carding divides her subjects into two rows facing each other, and then goes on to recruit them to play murder victims, assassins, royals, courtiers, and soldiers. However, the makeshift cast of Richard III (A One Woman Show) need not be off script. There is snark but no embarrassment, for Shakespeare’s most calculating villain does all of the talking while keeping the deadly matter of succession fun.
. . .[Carding] does all of the talking while keeping the deadly matter of succession fun.
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In addition to being a good host, Richard is also a great storyteller, surmising his involvement in the War of the Roses in an hour’s time. Though retaining the Lord Protector’s limp and twisted posture, Carding’s Richard is dressed in a nondescript black suit. Androgyny is an appropriate and extremely creative choice for a character consumed by ambition.
Director Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir adds strong modern-day touches, such as an office chair with wheels substituting as the throne. The corporate theme continues with audience members recruited for bigger parts wearing “Hello: My Name Is” tags with their character’s name. When someone is dispensed with, Richard slaps a white mailing label marked “DEAD.” Perhaps not so surprisingly, Richard uses a cellphone to take a selfie, which he calls a “shadow,” and track the future Henry VII’s invasion. The Bible is Shakespeare’s play.
A monologue version of Richard III works well to start with because he always lets the audience in on what he’s thinking. With Richard III (A One Woman Show), he allows them to get closer…whether they want to or not…and it’s okay, because it also means getting closer to Shakespeare.
THEATRE IS EASY
****
Richard III (A One Woman Show)By William Shakespeare; Adapted by Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir and Emily Carding
Directed by Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir
Produced by Brite Theater
Part of the 2016 New York International Fringe Festival
Off Off Broadway, Solo Show
Runs through 8.20.16
VENUE #10: Alpha Omega Theatrical Dance Company, 70 East 4th Street by Alexandra Holden on 8.18.16
BOTTOM LINE: An interactive journey through one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies.
Few theatre companies can pull off Shakespeare’s titanic tragedy Richard III. Even fewer actors can do justice to the part of the regicidal Duke of Gloucester. Miraculously, Brite Theater and Emily Carding have managed to do just that in—of all places—a white, thin-walled dance studio in the depths of the East Village.
This highly-condensed version of Richard III begins with the Duke herself (Emily Carding) helping audience members to their respective seats and assigning them the other roles of the play. That’s right--we make up the English court in this modernized interpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy. A very minimal production, the set consists only of a single black rolling office chair, a table with a glass of wine, a prayer book, little stickers with the word “DEAD” scrawled on them in red marker, and the chairs that audience members sit in. This isRichard III stripped down to its barest element—the connection between audience and actor.
When Richard and the audience click, it’s electric. Emily Carding has the power to change the tone of the room with just the look of an eye. The remnants of her powerful touch are palpable for hours after contact, as I learned after she declared me “the dead King Henry” and slapped a “DEAD” sticker onto my shirt. I was a little awkward at first, but Carding handled it with elegance and cheeky wit.
Despite her talents, Carding is presented a challenge by such an intense breakdown of the fourth wall. The play has a rocky lift-off, with audience members potentially wondering how much participation is too much participation. At times, it feels like Carding is dragging us along in the play rather than taking the journey withus. As the show goes on, Carding manages to navigate these awkward moments with precision and grace—likely due to the audience members easing into their roles. Her Richard is charming, sinister, conniving, guilt-ridden, and utterly pathetic all at once. This performance is everything that we would want of one of the bard’s greatest villains.
Though it has a bit of a shaky start, Richard III (a one-woman show) is an undoubtedly unique ride through this classic tragedy.
INFINITE BODY
FRINGE BENEFITS: Emily Carding--and you!--in "Richard III"
Instead of paying actors to play Shakespearean roles, Emily Carding gets them to work for free. By that, I mean most of the people in her small audience, each one sporting a lanyard ID--her "Duke of Buckingham," her "Lady Anne"--and occasional looks of uncertainty as Carding's masterful Richard III shares cynical confidences with one or gruffly orders around another. As the tale of bloody power grabs unfolds, condensed to under an hour, no one in attendance--even those without named roles--can fully relax. We know that Carding's Richard might suddenly lock eyes with us, requiring something of us, find us wanting.
We are not safe, Clarence. We are not safe.
What's more, Clarence, we can easily be offed by little more than an arsenal of office supplies.
An anticipated highlight of this summer's FringeNYC, Brite Theater's Richard III (a one-woman show) comes to New York bearing awards from the Fringes of Prague and Edinburgh. And, by Richard's will and Carding's skill, it will conquer in its US premiere. The set-up of the new-ish Alpha Omega studio on East 4th Street provides just enough space for Carding to pace or impatiently push off on the wheels of her office chair while maintaining intimacy and a tyrant's grip on her audience.
This Richard's world of scheming and endless violence is our own, where battleground reports come via text message and leaders can instantly document their narcissism with selfies.
The narrow runner of space between two rows of seating--accommodating perhaps 25-30 people--is charged with the energy of Richard's malevolence and excess. Directed by Brite's founder Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir, Carding interprets Shakespeare's Richard--a man of visible disability--with bearing and even speech that I'm greatly tempted to call dance. Dark business suit and skinny red tie askew, her body seems, at once, frozen and propelled in multiple directions even when still. And her speech, if failing in rhythm, moves with varying, unpredictable angles of attack. Deep into the performance, Carding seems to drop into a flow state from which she yields improvised snark--snapping at an unexpectedly stubborn "Lord Grey," Well now I know what you are getting killed for!--or minute, quite convincing facial expressions of fear and disintegration.
Make Richard III (a one-woman show) one of your priority stops along the Fringe.
PRAGUE FRINGE REVIEWS
FRINGY BITS
Richard III (Kavárna 3+1, May 22-25) 'This production blew me away. I have never seen a more sinister, terrifying Richard III than this one. The novelty of a woman playing the role is utterly irrelevant two minutes into the show. What happens in this small space at Kavárna is a brutal tale of jealousy, lies, treachery and murder. Audience members are assigned roles and pulled into the horror that is Richard’s world. The power of Shakespeare’s poetry is on full display here, making Richard’s every line a tribute to his toxic brilliance. I was lucky enough to be a mute Buckingham and so a partner and witness to Richard’s pure evil, and I felt part of the action, a player in this hellish world. The very simplicity of the production is its strength. This is a bravura performance. The control she exercises over the audience participants is simply an extension of Richard’s control over the players in his deadly game. Have I gushed enough? This performance is a masterpiece. See it.' Michael Calcott, Fringy Bits May 23 2015
PRAGUE POST
Richard III by Brite Theater
'You will never quite think about Richard III the same way ever again. Emily Carding’s powerful performance as the king in one of the Bard’s bloodiest plays is staggering, not because of the actress’s undisputed powerhouse performance, but because the approach is multi-textured, difficult to pin down and cannot be easy to perform, although she somehow manages to do it really well.
The texture includes audience participation, cell phones, metatextuality and of course the hour-long monologue that is not your average soliloquy. Now, audience participation is always a big risk for the performer, but as Richard’s fellow conspirators and fellow victims, their parts are essential to the experience, and luckily Carding handles the overeager, overacting participants exactly right: by mostly ignoring them and casting her steely eyes toward the rest, putting the fear of God into us.
The indisputable highlight of the hour is when Richard unexpectedly stops speaking, and every second Carling holds the silence brings us closer and closer to the slaughterous ruler — even though by that stage half the audience have been killed off already as flippantly as Virginia Woolf eliminated Mrs. Ramsay fromTo the Lighthouse. You don’t need to know any Shakespeare to realize this show is electric.' André Crous, Prague Post May 24 2015
Brite Theater seems to consist of director Kolbrun Sigfusdottir and performer Emily Carding who collaborated to create an astonishing take on Richard III. The fact that there are only two of them is a very good thing in this case because the Kaverna 3+1 venue is microscopic, seating maybe 23 with a stage smaller than a twin bed and therefore there is no room for anyone else. As you walk in and choose a seat you may find yourself assigned to be a character in the play.
This may require you to be called up on stage, where you will have no lines, but are part of the action. From the top of the play Ms. Carding blows through the fourth wall confronting us other characters where they sit, or bringing them up on stage or assigning them to kill others.
To do this she roams from the stage down the center aisle with malice aforethought and although she is the only voice, this is not a monologue, this is a play and we are players. With Richard being who he is, many of the audience found themselves wearing stickers at the end of the play that labeled them “Dead”.
This concept works because Ms. Carding is a serious Shakespearean actor and Ms. Kolbrun knows when and where to place her. Iambic pentameter can be a tough meal to chew on, but coming from this show, it is clear and goes down like melted butter.
There is no set because there is nowhere to put one. The costume design is a man’s suit and tie and the show is performed in house lighting because almost everyone in the room is part of the cast. Somehow, with the most minimal of materials, this show is complete theatre. Joan Kane, FringeReview May 25 2015
DC THEATRE SCENE
There is a one-woman Richard III here which boils down the play to a psycho’s sick “To Do List,” and we, the audience members, crammed into a space about the size of a cell, become her playthings and her victims. From the moment actress Emily Carding — think the icy, androgynous Annie Lennox — greets the audience one by one and seats us giving each a sign with our character’s name, she unleashes upon our heads all the machinations of this sinister mind. She watches for every flicker and give-away weakness, then pounces, using us to her advantage and to feed her dramatically – and she can go even farther with this to make it even richer in feeling as scene rather than monologue. When one of the characters dies, she keeps a tally by slapping a sticker on the designated audience member, “Dead.” Putting Richard in a woman’s body makes dramatic sense and justifies the character’s arc that is all about the need to over-compensate and be ballsier than any guy. In this venue as in Richard’s court there is no exit. Susan Galbraith, DC Theatre Scene June 3 2015
FRINGE THEATREFEST BARNSTAPLE REVIEWS
FRINGEREVIEW
As I am waiting to be seated outside St. Anne’s auditorium, I am already assured that this piece will be more than just Richard III cut down and recited by one person. Richard III, played by Emily Carding, is staggering around greeting audience members and selecting them to play various characters from the original play; Henry VII, Lady Anne et al.
Before I continue, I’d like to mention that I’m not that familiar with Richard III’s story, least of all Shakespeare’s version. All I know is that he was a baddy and murdered his nephews. It is soon clear that lack of prior knowledge needn’t matter because Brite Theatre have made a performance for everyone, everywhere. Even for those, like me, who are not accustomed with the nitty-gritty dealings of kings from the middle-ages.
St Anne’s is a perfect setting for this performance. The 14th Century church complements the Shakespearean prose, whilst beautifully juxtaposing against the corporate Richard III; impeccably dressed in a double-breasted suit, complete with iPhone, obviously. The freshly appointed cast sit opposite each other, traverse style, whilst the rest of the un-casted audience sit further back, in rows. The audience surround Carding, who sits at a table on an office wheelie chair, creating an intimate atmosphere as though we are looking in on Richard III’s personal study.
Carding’s physicality is excellent and unpredictable, embodying Richard’s repellent nature. When not limping or lurching at the audience, she swigs wine and rolls around on her chair, giving her a cyborg-like quality, mechanical yet dangerous. The parallels between 15th Century monarch and modern day city-slicker are prevalent. She exudes a bitter evil with her nonchalant delivery and indifferent attitude towards killing off the supporting cast. This is done brilliantly through the usage of sticky-labels which we see lined up on her desk. One-by-one the characters are labelled ‘dead’ and excitement builds as we wonder: who will be next?
For the most part, the audience participation in the show works well. An audience member stole the show when given the task to kill off various members of the cast. Apologising to each character she gave a label to and when recognising one of her victims, mentioned ‘good to see you again, love’, before returning to her seat. ‘It’s so sad’, someone else chirped up, commenting on all the deaths. A few murmurs of agreement are heard around the audience. Here, the room really came alive, breaking down performer/audience hierarchies. At other times, the participation didn’t feel particularly meaningful. Richard would call someone out of their seat to say something to them, then they would immediately be sent away. I feel that these moments could have been expanded so that the participation could really inform the show, not just decorate it.
The pace and structure of piece are very well crafted. The audience is kept guessing throughout as to Richard’s next stunt. The participation is, at times, unnecessary, this causes the performance to become a little clunky. Though when used effectively, this makes up for those moments. All in all, Richard III is a thrilling piece for many reasons. It has to be said that one performer holding an audience's attention completely for 50 minutes is no mean feat and, for this, Brite Theatre should be applauded. Rosa Irwin Clark FringeReview, June 25 2015
EDINBURG FRINGE REVIEWS
As I am waiting to be seated outside St. Anne’s auditorium, I am already assured that this piece will be more than just Richard III cut down and recited by one person. Richard III, played by Emily Carding, is staggering around greeting audience members and selecting them to play various characters from the original play; Henry VII, Lady Anne et al.
Before I continue, I’d like to mention that I’m not that familiar with Richard III’s story, least of all Shakespeare’s version. All I know is that he was a baddy and murdered his nephews. It is soon clear that lack of prior knowledge needn’t matter because Brite Theatre have made a performance for everyone, everywhere. Even for those, like me, who are not accustomed with the nitty-gritty dealings of kings from the middle-ages.
St Anne’s is a perfect setting for this performance. The 14th Century church complements the Shakespearean prose, whilst beautifully juxtaposing against the corporate Richard III; impeccably dressed in a double-breasted suit, complete with iPhone, obviously. The freshly appointed cast sit opposite each other, traverse style, whilst the rest of the un-casted audience sit further back, in rows. The audience surround Carding, who sits at a table on an office wheelie chair, creating an intimate atmosphere as though we are looking in on Richard III’s personal study.
Carding’s physicality is excellent and unpredictable, embodying Richard’s repellent nature. When not limping or lurching at the audience, she swigs wine and rolls around on her chair, giving her a cyborg-like quality, mechanical yet dangerous. The parallels between 15th Century monarch and modern day city-slicker are prevalent. She exudes a bitter evil with her nonchalant delivery and indifferent attitude towards killing off the supporting cast. This is done brilliantly through the usage of sticky-labels which we see lined up on her desk. One-by-one the characters are labelled ‘dead’ and excitement builds as we wonder: who will be next?
For the most part, the audience participation in the show works well. An audience member stole the show when given the task to kill off various members of the cast. Apologising to each character she gave a label to and when recognising one of her victims, mentioned ‘good to see you again, love’, before returning to her seat. ‘It’s so sad’, someone else chirped up, commenting on all the deaths. A few murmurs of agreement are heard around the audience. Here, the room really came alive, breaking down performer/audience hierarchies. At other times, the participation didn’t feel particularly meaningful. Richard would call someone out of their seat to say something to them, then they would immediately be sent away. I feel that these moments could have been expanded so that the participation could really inform the show, not just decorate it.
The pace and structure of piece are very well crafted. The audience is kept guessing throughout as to Richard’s next stunt. The participation is, at times, unnecessary, this causes the performance to become a little clunky. Though when used effectively, this makes up for those moments. All in all, Richard III is a thrilling piece for many reasons. It has to be said that one performer holding an audience's attention completely for 50 minutes is no mean feat and, for this, Brite Theatre should be applauded. Rosa Irwin Clark FringeReview, June 25 2015
EDINBURG FRINGE REVIEWS
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BROADWAY BABY
I have seen several performances of Richard III; Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen on film, and Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic, but Emily Carding’s portrayal of the king who murders his way to the English throne is in a league of its own. Her performance is electric, perfectly capturing Richard’s manic glee as he executes foes, friends and even his own family. We are drawn into Richard’s world as soon as we enter the chapel of St John’s, as Carding greets us all individually by a character’s name and places an appropriate label around our necks. We, the audience, portray all of the other characters in Shakespeare’s drama, meaning that we do not sit idly by and watch Richard’s schemes; we are involved, his co-conspirators and, sadly for most of us, his victims. This innovative, daring re-imaging of the text means that the sense of danger as Richard’s schemes escalate, the sense of fear as we find ourselves to be pawns in his game, these feelings are physical, personal, palpable. There is no fourth wall. We are invested and involved in this performance like no other; and what a performance it is.
With her powerful physicality and nuanced, mesmerising speech, it is [Emily Carding's] name, and not just Richard’s, that stands as a tower of strength.
It is clear that Carding is thoroughly enjoying herself portraying Richard, whether laughing with incredulity at the wooing of Lady Anne or calling across the room to Clarence when speaking to his murderers “I hope you aren’t listening to this!”. These occasional asides and Carding’s responses to and interaction with her audience show her skill at improvisation, further drawing us in as we laugh along with her, sharing in Richard’s amusement even though we know him to be a villain. There is a great sense of fun throughout this performance, the same joy that Richard has in his ability to “seem a saint when most I play the devil” yet, as this line would indicate, there is an ever-present danger behind this enjoyment. There’s daggers in men’s smiles.
This sense of danger is heightened by Brite Theater’s adaptation of the text as a one woman show, manipulating it so that Richard can address characters as though they have spoken to him, responding to their nods and looks; a one woman show but no mere monologue, as the audience willingly works to aid Richard along his bloody path to power. Although a great deal is cut from the text, it feels as though there is nothing missing at all, so skilful is Carding in speaking Shakespeare’s language, his verse the star of the show and a testament to Richard’s complexity and malice. The story is made clear for those who do not know the play not only in this editing of the text but in Carding’s performance, gesturing or glowering at characters as she mentions them; looks made all the more terrifying for me as I was cast as one of the Woodvilles whom Richard despises, and eventually kills off. The manner of these deaths I will not disclose; suffice to say that the simplicity, and surprising humour, of these executions, as well as the minimalist set and props, only adds to the show’s strength.
There is no set, as such, just a table and a swivel chair. Nothing else is needed. The contrast between Richard in suit and tie, in the office chair, surrounded by the audience as though at a board meeting, and the stained glass and stone walls of the church was an incredible fusion of the modern and medieval worlds for Carding’s Richard to bustle in, her physicality unpredictable and dangerous, as mesmerising as her speech. This proved atmospheric enough, but the echoes of Richard’s battle oratory about the chapel walls were sufficient to send chills down my spine. The props are as minimal as the set, with a paper crown heightening the sense of Richard’s play-acting, as well as the fragility of his eventual grip on power. Carding’s grip on the audience, however, is anything but fragile, and earned her a deserved standing ovation. With her powerful physicality and nuanced, mesmerising speech, it is her name, and not just Richard’s, that stands as a tower of strength. Catriona Scott Broadway Baby August 14 2015
THE LIST
Richard III (a one-woman show)One-woman version of Shakespeare’s tale of ruthless ambition makes us all complicit in its bloody action
****
It’s a brilliantly simple but chillingly effective concept. At the entrance, we’re given nameplates and assigned supporting roles (non-speaking ones, don’t worry – in fact, the more passive the better) in Emily Carding’s abridged, one-woman performance of Shakespeare’s play on ruthless, bloody political ambition. Seated in neat rows on either side of the small room, observing both the actor and each other, we’re all complicit in Richard’s scheming, murderous rise to power, either actively helping him on his way, or simply doing nothing to stop him.
Staying largely faithful to Shakespeare’s original text (albeit Richard’s lines), Brite Theatre have turned the play into a broader metaphor for the rise of tyranny, and cunningly lined it up next to the conventional passivity of a theatre audience too. We’re bewitched and charmed by Carding’s sparkling, powerful performance, full of gags and asides, but there are moments – mention of manipulating the opinions of the ignorant masses, for instance – when the artifice falls and we realise just how deeply we’re implicated.
It seldom signposts its themes, and indeed, the show could sometimes do with being a little more direct. But using the simplest of means – a single woman, a small room, a few chairs and a couple of props – it packs a powerful and subversive punch. David Kettle The List August 19 2015
FEMALE ARTS
It is always exciting to find a reworking of a Shakespeare classic with a woman at the centre. In this case Shakespeare’s arch villain, Richard III – a play that came to define not only the man but was the prime example of a play as propoganda, for several hundred years.
A chapel in St John’s church in Edinburgh’s west end makes a perfect setting for this new one woman retelling first performed in Tjarnarbio Iceland in 2014. It has been adapted by Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir (director) and Emily Carding (performer).
As we arrive Emily Carding playing Richard casts members of the audience as key characters giving them labels to hang round their neck. These include Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville, her brothers the Earls Grey and Rivers, Richard’s allies – Buckingham, Catesby and Hastings and, of course, the princes. One by one they are drawn into the story before having a further label ‘DEAD’ attached to them.
This is a clear and concise retelling of the story using the original text – with occasional substitutions of pronoun and the odd aside to help the newly cast audience member to the right place.
There is no set other than a small table and an office chair that Carding uses to great effect to travel the length of the stage area. The few props are also used to good effect, especially the phone – via which Richard receives much of the new from France as Richmond approaches. It works well and gives a sense of urgency to the proceedings. In addition there is only one row of seats around the wall so everyone has a good view.
Reducing any Shakespeare to an hour is no mean feat and involves leaving out great swathes of story. In this adaptation there is a clear narrative and the audience involvement helps to contribute to the clarity of the story. The latter part, after Richard is crowned, is particularly challenging as there are no longer the long, often, playful soliloquys that we find in the earlier acts, where Richard confides his plans, often gleefully, to the audience. I felt that they had made strong choices and the story flows well to its climax on Bosworth Field. Carding’s approach to the famous ‘A horse, a horse’ cry is to make it quiet, intimate and prelude to death rather than a battle cry and that is very powerful.
The shifts between scenes, for example between Richard on his own addressing us to Richard addressing the court weren’t always clear and would benefit from drawing more clearly. This space has no stage lighting which may have helped mark those changes in earlier productions.
I felt that there the piece could develop further – in any Shakespeare where a woman is playing the role of a man I look for some insight from a feminine perspective, a bringing out of the feminine side of the character for example as Carding did at the very end. I didn’t leave feeling I had seen a new side to Richard and I am sure that there is scope to delve deeper into the narrative that they have created and create a truly original take on this famous enigma of a man.
Overall, this is a great setting to hear the story of Shakespeare’s Richard told clearly and well by a woman who commands the stage and the audience at all times. Kate Saffin Female Arts August 20 2015
THE MUMBLE
****
I think perhaps we’re getting to the stage where everything that could possibly be done with and to Shakespeare’s plays has been done, from the instantly recognisable histrionics of Laurence Olivier on film to Blackadder, from modern-dress productions to translations into Klingon. But the Bard won’t lie down, and neither will the inventiveness of his interpreters. Brite Theater’s Emily Carding has been presenting a one-woman version of Richard III for Edinburgh Fringe audiences, obliterating (according to pre-publicity) the traditional ‘fourth wall’ between audience and performer, and garnering some glowing reviews. Will this be another one? Wait and see!
To distil any play to a state where a single actor can carry it requires judicious and inspired editing. We’re blessed that Shakespeare’s protagonists soliloquise so often, to give insight into their state of mind and intentions, that we have a good base to build on. The script of the Brite version of Richard III carries things further by, inter alia, incorporating some of the lines of other characters into Richard’s by way of commentary, in this kind of construction: “You say so-and-so has done such-and-such, well then…” Other devices are used, such as the modern setting allowing Richard to hold a conversation on a mobile phone, or to read out a series of incoming texts from another character. Surprisingly these are devices which all work. The breaking of the fourth wall isn’t as total as the pre-publicity makes out. By and large we sit and watch enrapt. Various members of the audience, as they file in, are given a sign to hang round their necks, identifying them as this or that character from the play; beyond that they are required to do very little, they have no set lines or actions beyond natural reactions, or occasionally they have to stand and be spoken to by Richard. Perhaps their major contribution is to receive a sticker bearing the word ‘DEAD’ when their character is disposed of. Apart from that we, the audience, watch and listen, standing once, and proclaiming once “Long live Richard, England’s royal King”. The reluctance and self-consciousness with which we complied with that was the whole point, and was the moment in the play when the fourth wall was truly broken – we were Richard’s unwilling subjects.
So much for the mechanics of the play. What about Emily Carding’s performance? Well, it is bound up with those mechanics. We meet her Richard, as we settle in our seats in the small venue, seeing him/her – ‘him’ from this point in my review – glowering from a swivel chair, wearing a dark suit. Draco Malfoy two decades on, almost. When we are still, and have been so for several seconds, Richard gives a deep sigh and, after another pause, speaks.
Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York…
A gesture to the labeled audience member, and – ah yes! – we are off, we are in familiar territory, and we are instantly attentive. The pause worked, and the delivery works. The standing, moving Richard is stereotypically deformed, not exaggeratedly so, but with a definite hunch and limp. Indeed if this punch is pulled then the meaning would go out of the words of the play. The delivery sharpens the focus on Richard, facilitates our listening to the actor’s words, those words becoming almost a sonata for voice. Sometimes this means we are not entirely sure what is soliloquy and what is not, and this points out a disadvantage in the concept of this presentation, inasmuch as an audience member must already understand the plot and structure of the full play in order to navigate the one-woman version. It would be almost pointless coming to this performance otherwise.
What else is lost, and does it matter? Well, most obviously, the play is shorn of much of its Tudor propaganda. All we know of Richmond – the future Henry VII – is the ‘vile politician’ Richard portrays him as. Yes, I know that’s a term from Henry IV Part 1, but the character to which it is applied is the type of which Richmond is the antitype, each shown as arguably justified in usurping an enthroned and anointed ‘Richard’. However, what this shearing-away of the Lancastrian apologia does is allow us to focus on Richard the man. The play à la Brite Theater, becomes The Tragedy of Richard III, with Richard as an anti-hero with whom we become intimately involved. Despite the fact that the casualty list of his ambition is plainly on show with ‘DEAD’ stickers on the victims, we begin to feel pity for this king, we see that he is no coward in his ambition. It’s not enough to make us Ricardian converts, but it makes us think, makes us check what we are feeling.
There are telling moments. Richard falls silent, remains so for a long time, his gaze tracking slowly from face to face in the audience. Suddenly we realise that he is looking, one-by-one, at every person whose death he has engineered and, if we know the play, we realise that he is seeing their ghosts on the night before the battle of Bosworth. If we know the play. Richard’s death is another telling moment. Already wounded, already dying, already wearing a ‘DEAD’ label, he pleads for a horse, pledges his kingdom for it, and dies reaching for the paper crown that has fallen from his head. The fact that it is made of paper serves to show how, ultimately, it is a meaningless object of desire and ambition. The play has to end there, Richard is dead.
Emily Carding’s performance in fact held me throughout. This can’t have been an easy performance to carry off. Allowing a small scattering of comedic moments and ad-libbing seasoned the mixture, but by far it was her delivery and characterisation that worked. It was an intensely emotional and even moving portrayal of the last Yorkist king of England. Hopefully this review will be on line in time to persuade you to go along and see the performance; as I write, the remaining performances are on 28th, 29th, and 31st of August. Despite the fact that I seem to be expressing reservations throughout this review, they are fair observations, and I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending it to you. FOUR STARS Paul Thompson The Mumble August 27 2015
THE BEEHIVE
Richard III comes to HonitonWe are becoming used to high standard productions at Honiton’s Beehive. But Emily Carding’s one woman show of Richard III – currently on a nationwide tour – was a ‘fantastic evening’ with a simply ‘breathtaking’ rendering of this royal villain. These are not my words but those of local audience member Tracy Devon who tweeted the actor after the show as have many others. Tracy found herself playing Lady Ann Grey, one of a dozen audience members who were drawn into King Richard’s dark and fully believable Machiavellian intrigues in a theatre- in- the round experience.
After ‘now is the winter of our discontent’ – Emily, hunchbacked, black suited and looking more like a seedy Sun journalist than a king, made unerring eye contact with every member of the audience. One felt a chill descend on the half lit auditorium when King Richard said ‘There is no creature loves me, And if I die no soul shall pity me’ as those around us were murdered, one by one, before our eyes. When this psychotic character crawled toward us vainly pleading ‘my kingdom for a horse’ few felt like helping him escape his fate at Bosworth at the hands of Henry Tudor’s Welsh army.
Emily Carding is not only a distinguished Shakespearian actress who has played at the Globe but won the pick of the Edinburgh fringe. She recently returned from the Prague fringe with awards for best, most inspirational and most creative performer. Her astonishing psychological portrait of Richard III took place only yards from Magna Carta which by chance was on display. Like so many monarchs before and after him Richard ignored human rights at his peril.
My only regret was that with decent support for the arts more could have seen this outstanding performance. Thanks to Emily Carding, a superb West Country acting protégé and to Wendy and her team at the Beehive who made it happen. Tony Simpson, Honiton September 6 2015
SHAKESPEARE RE-LOADED FESTIVAL - ROME
*****
“RICHARD III”: a one-woman show 28 Aprile 2016 unica data a Roma al Teatro Argot Studio; 29 Aprile 2016 Cantina Shakespeare, VeronaUna donna nelle vesti di un uomo, anzi di un re. Ma non un re qualsiasi: re Riccardo III, il protagonista dell’opera di Shakespeare del 1591-92 che conclude la tetralogia drammatica formata da Enrico VI, parte 1, Enrico VI, parte 2 e Enrico VI, parte 3. L’ennesima interpretazione shakespeariana? Assolutamente no! Il Brite Theater ha superato ogni aspettativa con questo one-woman show in cui viene abbattuta totalmente la quarta parete e il pubblico stesso viene chiamato in causa a interpretare gli altri personaggi dell’opera. Emily Carding incarna l’archetipo del re gobbo, zoppicante, dell’anti eroe, che solo dopo l’incoronazione si rivela per quello che è: crudele e senza scrupoli, pronto a eliminare chiunque si frapponga tra lui e la scalata al potere. La sua interpretazione è sublime e ipnotizzante in questa totale e originale reinvenzione del testo in cui gli spettatori sono così dentro, così assorbiti da esso, da sembrare mosche attaccate alla tela del ragno, in trappola.
Ma una trappola piacevole, di chi sa fare teatro, di chi sa portare per mano chi guarda, conducendolo nella storia. Lo spettacolo è infatti coinvolgente e travolge la platea con la forza scenica e fisica di questa donna, che si percepisce in modo così prorompente, tanto da far gustare, assaporare ogni cambiamento di intenzione e umore: dalla crudeltà alla sete di potere (che è così palpabile!) insieme alla sfrenata e insana ambizione e desiderio di rivincita e vendetta che si consuma durante tutta l’ora dell’esibizione. Per una serata elettrica, intensa e di teatro puro: sconsigliato a timidi e noiosi!
Lo spettacolo fa parte del Festival Shakespeare Re-Loaded (presso il Teatro Argot Studio), che è iniziato con il Richard III e che terminerà con Shylock di Gareth Armstrong con Mauro Parrinello il 29 e 30 aprile, realizzato in occasione dell’importante anniversario dei quattrocento anni dalla morte del creatore del Teatro Moderno. Al Festival hanno collaborato anche altri teatri: Teatro Sala Uno, Teatro Comunale Camploy, Casa Shakespeare e con Casa Shakespeare, Teatro Azione, KIT Italia, Kairos Italy Theater, Sycamore T-Company.
Flavia severin
I have seen several performances of Richard III; Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen on film, and Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic, but Emily Carding’s portrayal of the king who murders his way to the English throne is in a league of its own. Her performance is electric, perfectly capturing Richard’s manic glee as he executes foes, friends and even his own family. We are drawn into Richard’s world as soon as we enter the chapel of St John’s, as Carding greets us all individually by a character’s name and places an appropriate label around our necks. We, the audience, portray all of the other characters in Shakespeare’s drama, meaning that we do not sit idly by and watch Richard’s schemes; we are involved, his co-conspirators and, sadly for most of us, his victims. This innovative, daring re-imaging of the text means that the sense of danger as Richard’s schemes escalate, the sense of fear as we find ourselves to be pawns in his game, these feelings are physical, personal, palpable. There is no fourth wall. We are invested and involved in this performance like no other; and what a performance it is.
With her powerful physicality and nuanced, mesmerising speech, it is [Emily Carding's] name, and not just Richard’s, that stands as a tower of strength.
It is clear that Carding is thoroughly enjoying herself portraying Richard, whether laughing with incredulity at the wooing of Lady Anne or calling across the room to Clarence when speaking to his murderers “I hope you aren’t listening to this!”. These occasional asides and Carding’s responses to and interaction with her audience show her skill at improvisation, further drawing us in as we laugh along with her, sharing in Richard’s amusement even though we know him to be a villain. There is a great sense of fun throughout this performance, the same joy that Richard has in his ability to “seem a saint when most I play the devil” yet, as this line would indicate, there is an ever-present danger behind this enjoyment. There’s daggers in men’s smiles.
This sense of danger is heightened by Brite Theater’s adaptation of the text as a one woman show, manipulating it so that Richard can address characters as though they have spoken to him, responding to their nods and looks; a one woman show but no mere monologue, as the audience willingly works to aid Richard along his bloody path to power. Although a great deal is cut from the text, it feels as though there is nothing missing at all, so skilful is Carding in speaking Shakespeare’s language, his verse the star of the show and a testament to Richard’s complexity and malice. The story is made clear for those who do not know the play not only in this editing of the text but in Carding’s performance, gesturing or glowering at characters as she mentions them; looks made all the more terrifying for me as I was cast as one of the Woodvilles whom Richard despises, and eventually kills off. The manner of these deaths I will not disclose; suffice to say that the simplicity, and surprising humour, of these executions, as well as the minimalist set and props, only adds to the show’s strength.
There is no set, as such, just a table and a swivel chair. Nothing else is needed. The contrast between Richard in suit and tie, in the office chair, surrounded by the audience as though at a board meeting, and the stained glass and stone walls of the church was an incredible fusion of the modern and medieval worlds for Carding’s Richard to bustle in, her physicality unpredictable and dangerous, as mesmerising as her speech. This proved atmospheric enough, but the echoes of Richard’s battle oratory about the chapel walls were sufficient to send chills down my spine. The props are as minimal as the set, with a paper crown heightening the sense of Richard’s play-acting, as well as the fragility of his eventual grip on power. Carding’s grip on the audience, however, is anything but fragile, and earned her a deserved standing ovation. With her powerful physicality and nuanced, mesmerising speech, it is her name, and not just Richard’s, that stands as a tower of strength. Catriona Scott Broadway Baby August 14 2015
THE LIST
Richard III (a one-woman show)One-woman version of Shakespeare’s tale of ruthless ambition makes us all complicit in its bloody action
****
It’s a brilliantly simple but chillingly effective concept. At the entrance, we’re given nameplates and assigned supporting roles (non-speaking ones, don’t worry – in fact, the more passive the better) in Emily Carding’s abridged, one-woman performance of Shakespeare’s play on ruthless, bloody political ambition. Seated in neat rows on either side of the small room, observing both the actor and each other, we’re all complicit in Richard’s scheming, murderous rise to power, either actively helping him on his way, or simply doing nothing to stop him.
Staying largely faithful to Shakespeare’s original text (albeit Richard’s lines), Brite Theatre have turned the play into a broader metaphor for the rise of tyranny, and cunningly lined it up next to the conventional passivity of a theatre audience too. We’re bewitched and charmed by Carding’s sparkling, powerful performance, full of gags and asides, but there are moments – mention of manipulating the opinions of the ignorant masses, for instance – when the artifice falls and we realise just how deeply we’re implicated.
It seldom signposts its themes, and indeed, the show could sometimes do with being a little more direct. But using the simplest of means – a single woman, a small room, a few chairs and a couple of props – it packs a powerful and subversive punch. David Kettle The List August 19 2015
FEMALE ARTS
It is always exciting to find a reworking of a Shakespeare classic with a woman at the centre. In this case Shakespeare’s arch villain, Richard III – a play that came to define not only the man but was the prime example of a play as propoganda, for several hundred years.
A chapel in St John’s church in Edinburgh’s west end makes a perfect setting for this new one woman retelling first performed in Tjarnarbio Iceland in 2014. It has been adapted by Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir (director) and Emily Carding (performer).
As we arrive Emily Carding playing Richard casts members of the audience as key characters giving them labels to hang round their neck. These include Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville, her brothers the Earls Grey and Rivers, Richard’s allies – Buckingham, Catesby and Hastings and, of course, the princes. One by one they are drawn into the story before having a further label ‘DEAD’ attached to them.
This is a clear and concise retelling of the story using the original text – with occasional substitutions of pronoun and the odd aside to help the newly cast audience member to the right place.
There is no set other than a small table and an office chair that Carding uses to great effect to travel the length of the stage area. The few props are also used to good effect, especially the phone – via which Richard receives much of the new from France as Richmond approaches. It works well and gives a sense of urgency to the proceedings. In addition there is only one row of seats around the wall so everyone has a good view.
Reducing any Shakespeare to an hour is no mean feat and involves leaving out great swathes of story. In this adaptation there is a clear narrative and the audience involvement helps to contribute to the clarity of the story. The latter part, after Richard is crowned, is particularly challenging as there are no longer the long, often, playful soliloquys that we find in the earlier acts, where Richard confides his plans, often gleefully, to the audience. I felt that they had made strong choices and the story flows well to its climax on Bosworth Field. Carding’s approach to the famous ‘A horse, a horse’ cry is to make it quiet, intimate and prelude to death rather than a battle cry and that is very powerful.
The shifts between scenes, for example between Richard on his own addressing us to Richard addressing the court weren’t always clear and would benefit from drawing more clearly. This space has no stage lighting which may have helped mark those changes in earlier productions.
I felt that there the piece could develop further – in any Shakespeare where a woman is playing the role of a man I look for some insight from a feminine perspective, a bringing out of the feminine side of the character for example as Carding did at the very end. I didn’t leave feeling I had seen a new side to Richard and I am sure that there is scope to delve deeper into the narrative that they have created and create a truly original take on this famous enigma of a man.
Overall, this is a great setting to hear the story of Shakespeare’s Richard told clearly and well by a woman who commands the stage and the audience at all times. Kate Saffin Female Arts August 20 2015
THE MUMBLE
****
I think perhaps we’re getting to the stage where everything that could possibly be done with and to Shakespeare’s plays has been done, from the instantly recognisable histrionics of Laurence Olivier on film to Blackadder, from modern-dress productions to translations into Klingon. But the Bard won’t lie down, and neither will the inventiveness of his interpreters. Brite Theater’s Emily Carding has been presenting a one-woman version of Richard III for Edinburgh Fringe audiences, obliterating (according to pre-publicity) the traditional ‘fourth wall’ between audience and performer, and garnering some glowing reviews. Will this be another one? Wait and see!
To distil any play to a state where a single actor can carry it requires judicious and inspired editing. We’re blessed that Shakespeare’s protagonists soliloquise so often, to give insight into their state of mind and intentions, that we have a good base to build on. The script of the Brite version of Richard III carries things further by, inter alia, incorporating some of the lines of other characters into Richard’s by way of commentary, in this kind of construction: “You say so-and-so has done such-and-such, well then…” Other devices are used, such as the modern setting allowing Richard to hold a conversation on a mobile phone, or to read out a series of incoming texts from another character. Surprisingly these are devices which all work. The breaking of the fourth wall isn’t as total as the pre-publicity makes out. By and large we sit and watch enrapt. Various members of the audience, as they file in, are given a sign to hang round their necks, identifying them as this or that character from the play; beyond that they are required to do very little, they have no set lines or actions beyond natural reactions, or occasionally they have to stand and be spoken to by Richard. Perhaps their major contribution is to receive a sticker bearing the word ‘DEAD’ when their character is disposed of. Apart from that we, the audience, watch and listen, standing once, and proclaiming once “Long live Richard, England’s royal King”. The reluctance and self-consciousness with which we complied with that was the whole point, and was the moment in the play when the fourth wall was truly broken – we were Richard’s unwilling subjects.
So much for the mechanics of the play. What about Emily Carding’s performance? Well, it is bound up with those mechanics. We meet her Richard, as we settle in our seats in the small venue, seeing him/her – ‘him’ from this point in my review – glowering from a swivel chair, wearing a dark suit. Draco Malfoy two decades on, almost. When we are still, and have been so for several seconds, Richard gives a deep sigh and, after another pause, speaks.
Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York…
A gesture to the labeled audience member, and – ah yes! – we are off, we are in familiar territory, and we are instantly attentive. The pause worked, and the delivery works. The standing, moving Richard is stereotypically deformed, not exaggeratedly so, but with a definite hunch and limp. Indeed if this punch is pulled then the meaning would go out of the words of the play. The delivery sharpens the focus on Richard, facilitates our listening to the actor’s words, those words becoming almost a sonata for voice. Sometimes this means we are not entirely sure what is soliloquy and what is not, and this points out a disadvantage in the concept of this presentation, inasmuch as an audience member must already understand the plot and structure of the full play in order to navigate the one-woman version. It would be almost pointless coming to this performance otherwise.
What else is lost, and does it matter? Well, most obviously, the play is shorn of much of its Tudor propaganda. All we know of Richmond – the future Henry VII – is the ‘vile politician’ Richard portrays him as. Yes, I know that’s a term from Henry IV Part 1, but the character to which it is applied is the type of which Richmond is the antitype, each shown as arguably justified in usurping an enthroned and anointed ‘Richard’. However, what this shearing-away of the Lancastrian apologia does is allow us to focus on Richard the man. The play à la Brite Theater, becomes The Tragedy of Richard III, with Richard as an anti-hero with whom we become intimately involved. Despite the fact that the casualty list of his ambition is plainly on show with ‘DEAD’ stickers on the victims, we begin to feel pity for this king, we see that he is no coward in his ambition. It’s not enough to make us Ricardian converts, but it makes us think, makes us check what we are feeling.
There are telling moments. Richard falls silent, remains so for a long time, his gaze tracking slowly from face to face in the audience. Suddenly we realise that he is looking, one-by-one, at every person whose death he has engineered and, if we know the play, we realise that he is seeing their ghosts on the night before the battle of Bosworth. If we know the play. Richard’s death is another telling moment. Already wounded, already dying, already wearing a ‘DEAD’ label, he pleads for a horse, pledges his kingdom for it, and dies reaching for the paper crown that has fallen from his head. The fact that it is made of paper serves to show how, ultimately, it is a meaningless object of desire and ambition. The play has to end there, Richard is dead.
Emily Carding’s performance in fact held me throughout. This can’t have been an easy performance to carry off. Allowing a small scattering of comedic moments and ad-libbing seasoned the mixture, but by far it was her delivery and characterisation that worked. It was an intensely emotional and even moving portrayal of the last Yorkist king of England. Hopefully this review will be on line in time to persuade you to go along and see the performance; as I write, the remaining performances are on 28th, 29th, and 31st of August. Despite the fact that I seem to be expressing reservations throughout this review, they are fair observations, and I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending it to you. FOUR STARS Paul Thompson The Mumble August 27 2015
THE BEEHIVE
Richard III comes to HonitonWe are becoming used to high standard productions at Honiton’s Beehive. But Emily Carding’s one woman show of Richard III – currently on a nationwide tour – was a ‘fantastic evening’ with a simply ‘breathtaking’ rendering of this royal villain. These are not my words but those of local audience member Tracy Devon who tweeted the actor after the show as have many others. Tracy found herself playing Lady Ann Grey, one of a dozen audience members who were drawn into King Richard’s dark and fully believable Machiavellian intrigues in a theatre- in- the round experience.
After ‘now is the winter of our discontent’ – Emily, hunchbacked, black suited and looking more like a seedy Sun journalist than a king, made unerring eye contact with every member of the audience. One felt a chill descend on the half lit auditorium when King Richard said ‘There is no creature loves me, And if I die no soul shall pity me’ as those around us were murdered, one by one, before our eyes. When this psychotic character crawled toward us vainly pleading ‘my kingdom for a horse’ few felt like helping him escape his fate at Bosworth at the hands of Henry Tudor’s Welsh army.
Emily Carding is not only a distinguished Shakespearian actress who has played at the Globe but won the pick of the Edinburgh fringe. She recently returned from the Prague fringe with awards for best, most inspirational and most creative performer. Her astonishing psychological portrait of Richard III took place only yards from Magna Carta which by chance was on display. Like so many monarchs before and after him Richard ignored human rights at his peril.
My only regret was that with decent support for the arts more could have seen this outstanding performance. Thanks to Emily Carding, a superb West Country acting protégé and to Wendy and her team at the Beehive who made it happen. Tony Simpson, Honiton September 6 2015
SHAKESPEARE RE-LOADED FESTIVAL - ROME
*****
“RICHARD III”: a one-woman show 28 Aprile 2016 unica data a Roma al Teatro Argot Studio; 29 Aprile 2016 Cantina Shakespeare, VeronaUna donna nelle vesti di un uomo, anzi di un re. Ma non un re qualsiasi: re Riccardo III, il protagonista dell’opera di Shakespeare del 1591-92 che conclude la tetralogia drammatica formata da Enrico VI, parte 1, Enrico VI, parte 2 e Enrico VI, parte 3. L’ennesima interpretazione shakespeariana? Assolutamente no! Il Brite Theater ha superato ogni aspettativa con questo one-woman show in cui viene abbattuta totalmente la quarta parete e il pubblico stesso viene chiamato in causa a interpretare gli altri personaggi dell’opera. Emily Carding incarna l’archetipo del re gobbo, zoppicante, dell’anti eroe, che solo dopo l’incoronazione si rivela per quello che è: crudele e senza scrupoli, pronto a eliminare chiunque si frapponga tra lui e la scalata al potere. La sua interpretazione è sublime e ipnotizzante in questa totale e originale reinvenzione del testo in cui gli spettatori sono così dentro, così assorbiti da esso, da sembrare mosche attaccate alla tela del ragno, in trappola.
Ma una trappola piacevole, di chi sa fare teatro, di chi sa portare per mano chi guarda, conducendolo nella storia. Lo spettacolo è infatti coinvolgente e travolge la platea con la forza scenica e fisica di questa donna, che si percepisce in modo così prorompente, tanto da far gustare, assaporare ogni cambiamento di intenzione e umore: dalla crudeltà alla sete di potere (che è così palpabile!) insieme alla sfrenata e insana ambizione e desiderio di rivincita e vendetta che si consuma durante tutta l’ora dell’esibizione. Per una serata elettrica, intensa e di teatro puro: sconsigliato a timidi e noiosi!
Lo spettacolo fa parte del Festival Shakespeare Re-Loaded (presso il Teatro Argot Studio), che è iniziato con il Richard III e che terminerà con Shylock di Gareth Armstrong con Mauro Parrinello il 29 e 30 aprile, realizzato in occasione dell’importante anniversario dei quattrocento anni dalla morte del creatore del Teatro Moderno. Al Festival hanno collaborato anche altri teatri: Teatro Sala Uno, Teatro Comunale Camploy, Casa Shakespeare e con Casa Shakespeare, Teatro Azione, KIT Italia, Kairos Italy Theater, Sycamore T-Company.
Flavia severin
LION AND UNICORN THEATRE LONDON
REMOTE GOAT
If you are a fan of Richard 3rd or even if you are not a fan of Richard 3, you should go and see this production at he Lion and Unicorn. And when I say see, that is not all. This is an interactive performance held together by one female actor who plays the title role, the rest of the company is played by you the audience.
At the entrance, you are given a warm handshake greeted by this blonde disfigured person in a black suit and given a name badge.
As she said to your reviewer. 'Hello, my dearest brother George and welcome' and she put round my neck a label saying Duke of Clarence.
We sit in a ring around her chair which is on rollers so that she can move around the circle easily. She has a desk containing a bottle of red wine and a full glass. Plus several stickers marked DEAD which she uses to plonk on the chests of her victims as she gradually kills off all the characters in the audience.
Despite her disabilities, the missing hand, the limp and the crooked shoulder, she is remarkably agile – Richard was a great swordsman (Of course the disabilities were from Shakespeare's imagination, so it may not be as strange as it seems)
This show is the brai child of Emily Carding who plays Richard and the director Kolbrun Sigfusdottir who both live in Reykjavik and work at the Tjamarbio Theatre. It has been seen in :Prague, Edinburgh and venues around England and in the summer will go to Brighton, Italy and New York..
I have seen this wonderful comic melodrama in all manner of guises and you have to fall in love with this charming villain and laugh at his vile ambitions as he works his way through all the heirs to the throne, killing them off one by one.
Carding gives a comic but highly creepy performance, she is an extremely gifted actor who knows how to stir up emotions in the audience gently persuading and encouraging them to take part in the story without bullying or badgering them.
As Clarence, I was the first to have the word DEAD stuck on my chest. But quickly followed by the King and everybody else – apart from the dowager Queen whose daughter her fancies. Our Buckingham was delightful in her enthusiasm joining in Richard's wicked schemes a love that turns to anger when he is let down by him.
This is something to be seen – her interpretation of the role – in addition to the quirkiness of the production make it something really special.
This show is only and hour long but well worth the trip – enjoy the excellent facilities of the pub downstairs. Aline Waites, Remote Goat May 17th 2016
LOVE LONDON CULTURE
This stripped back one woman production of Richard III is just as disconcerting as it is fascinating to witness (and take part in).
From the second that audience members step into the intimate space of the Lion and Unicorn Theatre, they automatically realise that what they are about to see and participate in, is something that is refreshing and unique.
On entering the auditorium, members of the audience are given name tags of the character that they are about to ‘play’ in the show, which very much emphasises Richard III’s changing attitudes towards the characters.
At the centre of Brite Theater’s production is Emily Carding’s stunning cool and sinister performance as Richard III himself. The way in which she meets the audience’s gaze when she refers to a particular character can be unnerving, as is her ability to change the mood in an instant.
It is a stripped back performance, that allows the character and his thoughts come to life effectively, but it can mean that the audience participation feels slightly awkward and uncomfortable at times – particularly during the opening moments when the audience isn’t sure what to expect, but it soon settles down as time goes on and allows the audience to become more comfortable in participating.
The concept of having those watching involved in such a way is clever and dramatic, really getting to the psychological nature of the play, but the lack of hearing what the other characters in the play have to say can mean there is a lack of intensity in places.
By keeping the show to roughly an hour in length, the energy is fast and intensifies as the play reaches its end, emphasising Richard’s despair and full realisation of what he has done. This is well shown through Carding’s terrified glance at all the characters that Richard has killed (all helpfully labelled ‘dead’) – allowing the audience to fully realise the extent of the horror of what he has done – no matter how brief his remorse.
Yet, it is not a fully sombre piece. There are moments when Carding really bounces off the audience’s reaction and it works well to break the tension, but at the same time it can seem as though it is trivialising the play in some small way.
But this shouldn’t prevent audiences from having a wonderfully unique experience of Shakespeare’s play, revealing how his work can be performed just as well without a set and a large cast. A wonderful way to celebrate Shakespeare’s 400th Anniversary. Love London Culture May 18th 2016 (Also published on My Theatre Mates)
CAMDEN REVIEW
THIS fascinating adaptation of one of the most iconic plays by William Shakespeare excellently depicts the tragic and murderous rise and fall of Richard III on his way to sitting on the English throne.
This production from Brite Theatre has a cast consisting solely of Emily Carding, who is brilliant as the doomed king, murdering his way to the throne before meeting his end.
Selling itself with the legend “What role will YOU play?”, audience participation is the order of the day.
With modest staging – just the audience/cast sat in a circle and allocated the other roles from the play – Carding perfectly delivers several monologues, while engaging the relevant characters from the audience as and when they are needed.
Carding manages to combine the tragic nature of the story with humour, including slapping stickers reading “DEAD” on the members of the audience when their characters meet an untimely demise.
Despite moments of shyness from the audience-cast, the rendition is succinct and, at only an hour in length, is superbly paced and produces an informed and complex reimagining without dragging on and allowing the novelty of the audience involvement to wear off.
Tremendously gripping and hysterically funny, Carding cannot be praised enough for her interpretation, which culminates in a magnificent delivery of the classic line: “A horse... a horse... My Kingdom for a horse!”
Recommended. George Zorlakkis, Camden Review May 19th 2016
GET THE CHANCE
Notably this year marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. His time was one of his writing on a standard stage, an all-male cast – the theatre not being a place for women to perform. And this would take a long while to change.
So who would have thought back then that so many different developments over the 400 odd years of his texts would lead to a one woman show of Richard the third in the top theatre of one of London’s quintessential London Theatre Pubs.
Those who are unaware of this play – (and where have you been?) – Richard is a deformed hunchback whose is treated outcast due to this. His anger and jealousy from being overlooked overcomes him to lead him into plotting deaths, marriage and eventually becoming King. As all villains, he soon gets his comeuppance leaving the scene with the famous line ‘’A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse’’
Described as a ‘one woman show’ – Emily Carding playing Richard is not alone. We are greeted to her room and given characters ourselves. The story is told through a narrative and we are spoken to as the characters but not with needing to respond. Carding manages to include us and show the two faced nature of the character – the welcoming and personal nature to each of us, and then the ‘behind the back’ narrative of what she really thinks of each of us – revealing her plots one after another.
We each feel different throughout this exchange – we feel like the characters and then we feel as part of her plot. Watching her interaction with the other audiences, her well constructed character she has developed rubs off onto each of them, making them believe their characters. The King is notably more proud than the average Joe who walks in, the love interest soon becomes flirtatious and shy at the conversation and touch of the actress, and myself as the Richard’s friend? My outsider critical self could not tell but perhaps I was even convinced by her charm to be someone else for the night.
A minimalist set but full of skilled content, this ‘one woman show’ becomes about all of us and by doing so, becomes a very clever and immersive piece of theatre. Hannah Goslin, Get The Chance May 22nd 2016
VENTSPLEEN
Experience Shakespeare's murdering King like never before and who knows? you may even survive the experience...
I didn't survive, in fact I was playing George, Duke of Clarence, so I was the first to fall victim to Richard's blood lust. Emily Carding is hypnotically mesmerising as Richard in a production that perfectly showcases the sheer breadth of her talent as well as her knowledge of Shakespeare. This is Shakespeare unlike anything I have ever experienced before and is truly a fully immersive experience. This being Pub Theatre, there is no stage and the audience are seated in a circle around a table and swivel chair. Welcomed by Richard himself, we are allocated a character to play and shown where we are to be seated. Right from the outset Carding is entirely believable as Richard and even ad libs expertly in character as she sizes each individual and allocates a role depending on what she feels suits them. All of this activity whilst feeling unusual doesn't really seem out of place and we sit in our seats with some considerable anticipation of what is to occur in the next hour. This is down to Carding's considerable stage presence and sheer confidence with her material, being a show that she has performed on over 50 occasions she has honed her performance to a sharpened point.
To undertake an accurate retelling of Richard III in only an hour and with only one (professional) actress would seem to be too much for even the most talented of actresses. Yet, Carding achieves this Herculean task by cleverly drawing the audience as her supporting cast. Whether an audience member replies in character or stays in stunned silence, Carding is able to move the show forward. Often relying on Richard's own, and perfectly within the plays text, monologue each audience member either assists with the murders before meeting with their own messy ends. The oppressive and intimate atmosphere created by Carding placing her portrayal of Richard within the confines of a tight circle is so effective and entirely gives the play its fluidity. With the use of an office swivelling chair, Richard moves from character to character, provoking violence and whispering words of flattery. With the dispatch of each character marked by the placement of a post it note with "Dead" written on it the audience are very much made to feel that the blood spilt does indeed stain their hands as well as Richard's. Never was this illusion of belief more clearly demonstrated than when Richard attempts to incite the murder of the two young Princes. The audience member coerced into this appalling act was clearly horrified and wrestling with their conscience, even uttering that "they would have to live with the actions for the rest of their lives" Richard's response? a grin and replying "oh go on! the money's good"
It is Carding''s portrayal of Richard as a murderous individual whose lust for power was also his undoing. But at the same time playing him as a human being who's actions were extreme but perhaps not entirely monstrous as had been previously implied. Indeed, under the powerful and accusatory stares of the ghosts who were haunting him one could almost feel a pang of sympathy for him. Richard had not received the security and sense of accomplishment that he had longed for and he realises that his murderous actions had added to his feelings of both emotional and physical inadequacy. Carding has created a wonderfully believable Richard that, complete with hugely effective hump and listless walk, ensures that the audience has not even the slightest hesitation in entering into the gory tableaux that is put before them. Carding has an impressive and lengthy experience with Shakespearean characterisation and the delivery of Richard's lines is both compelling and powerful.
Of particular note is the effective way that modern technology is used without it feeling unnecessary or gimmicky. Richard receives reports of the battle via mobile phone text, which serves as both a way to increase his irritation as the messages are often overlapping. This also nicely overcomes the issue of the lack of supporting cast who must deliver a particular piece of information at the relevant time. Carding also expertly deals with sudden thumps or noises without once dropping out of character which, coupled with the occasional ad lib to audience members, accentuates the authenticity of her performance.
As the play draws to an end and Richard falls to the floor, marking his own body with its own post it noted death certificate the audience are left in dumb founded awe. Carding herself after taking her well earned applause is clearly exhausted and this is not a performance that would convince without a 100% level of commitment and passion.
With the challenges of bringing theatre in a relevant way to an audience that is growing ever smaller and less willing to move outside of "what they know", it is hugely exciting to see Shakespeare brought to life in a way that still has the power to entrance. Whilst never taking away from the sheer brilliance of The Bard's writing, Carding's performance serves as a example to all. A statement of intent that no matter how hard and great the challenge to create and innovate there are still actors who are talented and bold enough to dream and dare to push the envelope. I leave the venue feeling that what I have experienced hasn't so much broken the fourth wall but smashed it to smithereens. Ventspleen May 24th 2016
LION AND UNICORN THEATRE LONDON
REMOTE GOAT
If you are a fan of Richard 3rd or even if you are not a fan of Richard 3, you should go and see this production at he Lion and Unicorn. And when I say see, that is not all. This is an interactive performance held together by one female actor who plays the title role, the rest of the company is played by you the audience.
At the entrance, you are given a warm handshake greeted by this blonde disfigured person in a black suit and given a name badge.
As she said to your reviewer. 'Hello, my dearest brother George and welcome' and she put round my neck a label saying Duke of Clarence.
We sit in a ring around her chair which is on rollers so that she can move around the circle easily. She has a desk containing a bottle of red wine and a full glass. Plus several stickers marked DEAD which she uses to plonk on the chests of her victims as she gradually kills off all the characters in the audience.
Despite her disabilities, the missing hand, the limp and the crooked shoulder, she is remarkably agile – Richard was a great swordsman (Of course the disabilities were from Shakespeare's imagination, so it may not be as strange as it seems)
This show is the brai child of Emily Carding who plays Richard and the director Kolbrun Sigfusdottir who both live in Reykjavik and work at the Tjamarbio Theatre. It has been seen in :Prague, Edinburgh and venues around England and in the summer will go to Brighton, Italy and New York..
I have seen this wonderful comic melodrama in all manner of guises and you have to fall in love with this charming villain and laugh at his vile ambitions as he works his way through all the heirs to the throne, killing them off one by one.
Carding gives a comic but highly creepy performance, she is an extremely gifted actor who knows how to stir up emotions in the audience gently persuading and encouraging them to take part in the story without bullying or badgering them.
As Clarence, I was the first to have the word DEAD stuck on my chest. But quickly followed by the King and everybody else – apart from the dowager Queen whose daughter her fancies. Our Buckingham was delightful in her enthusiasm joining in Richard's wicked schemes a love that turns to anger when he is let down by him.
This is something to be seen – her interpretation of the role – in addition to the quirkiness of the production make it something really special.
This show is only and hour long but well worth the trip – enjoy the excellent facilities of the pub downstairs. Aline Waites, Remote Goat May 17th 2016
LOVE LONDON CULTURE
This stripped back one woman production of Richard III is just as disconcerting as it is fascinating to witness (and take part in).
From the second that audience members step into the intimate space of the Lion and Unicorn Theatre, they automatically realise that what they are about to see and participate in, is something that is refreshing and unique.
On entering the auditorium, members of the audience are given name tags of the character that they are about to ‘play’ in the show, which very much emphasises Richard III’s changing attitudes towards the characters.
At the centre of Brite Theater’s production is Emily Carding’s stunning cool and sinister performance as Richard III himself. The way in which she meets the audience’s gaze when she refers to a particular character can be unnerving, as is her ability to change the mood in an instant.
It is a stripped back performance, that allows the character and his thoughts come to life effectively, but it can mean that the audience participation feels slightly awkward and uncomfortable at times – particularly during the opening moments when the audience isn’t sure what to expect, but it soon settles down as time goes on and allows the audience to become more comfortable in participating.
The concept of having those watching involved in such a way is clever and dramatic, really getting to the psychological nature of the play, but the lack of hearing what the other characters in the play have to say can mean there is a lack of intensity in places.
By keeping the show to roughly an hour in length, the energy is fast and intensifies as the play reaches its end, emphasising Richard’s despair and full realisation of what he has done. This is well shown through Carding’s terrified glance at all the characters that Richard has killed (all helpfully labelled ‘dead’) – allowing the audience to fully realise the extent of the horror of what he has done – no matter how brief his remorse.
Yet, it is not a fully sombre piece. There are moments when Carding really bounces off the audience’s reaction and it works well to break the tension, but at the same time it can seem as though it is trivialising the play in some small way.
But this shouldn’t prevent audiences from having a wonderfully unique experience of Shakespeare’s play, revealing how his work can be performed just as well without a set and a large cast. A wonderful way to celebrate Shakespeare’s 400th Anniversary. Love London Culture May 18th 2016 (Also published on My Theatre Mates)
CAMDEN REVIEW
THIS fascinating adaptation of one of the most iconic plays by William Shakespeare excellently depicts the tragic and murderous rise and fall of Richard III on his way to sitting on the English throne.
This production from Brite Theatre has a cast consisting solely of Emily Carding, who is brilliant as the doomed king, murdering his way to the throne before meeting his end.
Selling itself with the legend “What role will YOU play?”, audience participation is the order of the day.
With modest staging – just the audience/cast sat in a circle and allocated the other roles from the play – Carding perfectly delivers several monologues, while engaging the relevant characters from the audience as and when they are needed.
Carding manages to combine the tragic nature of the story with humour, including slapping stickers reading “DEAD” on the members of the audience when their characters meet an untimely demise.
Despite moments of shyness from the audience-cast, the rendition is succinct and, at only an hour in length, is superbly paced and produces an informed and complex reimagining without dragging on and allowing the novelty of the audience involvement to wear off.
Tremendously gripping and hysterically funny, Carding cannot be praised enough for her interpretation, which culminates in a magnificent delivery of the classic line: “A horse... a horse... My Kingdom for a horse!”
Recommended. George Zorlakkis, Camden Review May 19th 2016
GET THE CHANCE
Notably this year marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. His time was one of his writing on a standard stage, an all-male cast – the theatre not being a place for women to perform. And this would take a long while to change.
So who would have thought back then that so many different developments over the 400 odd years of his texts would lead to a one woman show of Richard the third in the top theatre of one of London’s quintessential London Theatre Pubs.
Those who are unaware of this play – (and where have you been?) – Richard is a deformed hunchback whose is treated outcast due to this. His anger and jealousy from being overlooked overcomes him to lead him into plotting deaths, marriage and eventually becoming King. As all villains, he soon gets his comeuppance leaving the scene with the famous line ‘’A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse’’
Described as a ‘one woman show’ – Emily Carding playing Richard is not alone. We are greeted to her room and given characters ourselves. The story is told through a narrative and we are spoken to as the characters but not with needing to respond. Carding manages to include us and show the two faced nature of the character – the welcoming and personal nature to each of us, and then the ‘behind the back’ narrative of what she really thinks of each of us – revealing her plots one after another.
We each feel different throughout this exchange – we feel like the characters and then we feel as part of her plot. Watching her interaction with the other audiences, her well constructed character she has developed rubs off onto each of them, making them believe their characters. The King is notably more proud than the average Joe who walks in, the love interest soon becomes flirtatious and shy at the conversation and touch of the actress, and myself as the Richard’s friend? My outsider critical self could not tell but perhaps I was even convinced by her charm to be someone else for the night.
A minimalist set but full of skilled content, this ‘one woman show’ becomes about all of us and by doing so, becomes a very clever and immersive piece of theatre. Hannah Goslin, Get The Chance May 22nd 2016
VENTSPLEEN
Experience Shakespeare's murdering King like never before and who knows? you may even survive the experience...
I didn't survive, in fact I was playing George, Duke of Clarence, so I was the first to fall victim to Richard's blood lust. Emily Carding is hypnotically mesmerising as Richard in a production that perfectly showcases the sheer breadth of her talent as well as her knowledge of Shakespeare. This is Shakespeare unlike anything I have ever experienced before and is truly a fully immersive experience. This being Pub Theatre, there is no stage and the audience are seated in a circle around a table and swivel chair. Welcomed by Richard himself, we are allocated a character to play and shown where we are to be seated. Right from the outset Carding is entirely believable as Richard and even ad libs expertly in character as she sizes each individual and allocates a role depending on what she feels suits them. All of this activity whilst feeling unusual doesn't really seem out of place and we sit in our seats with some considerable anticipation of what is to occur in the next hour. This is down to Carding's considerable stage presence and sheer confidence with her material, being a show that she has performed on over 50 occasions she has honed her performance to a sharpened point.
To undertake an accurate retelling of Richard III in only an hour and with only one (professional) actress would seem to be too much for even the most talented of actresses. Yet, Carding achieves this Herculean task by cleverly drawing the audience as her supporting cast. Whether an audience member replies in character or stays in stunned silence, Carding is able to move the show forward. Often relying on Richard's own, and perfectly within the plays text, monologue each audience member either assists with the murders before meeting with their own messy ends. The oppressive and intimate atmosphere created by Carding placing her portrayal of Richard within the confines of a tight circle is so effective and entirely gives the play its fluidity. With the use of an office swivelling chair, Richard moves from character to character, provoking violence and whispering words of flattery. With the dispatch of each character marked by the placement of a post it note with "Dead" written on it the audience are very much made to feel that the blood spilt does indeed stain their hands as well as Richard's. Never was this illusion of belief more clearly demonstrated than when Richard attempts to incite the murder of the two young Princes. The audience member coerced into this appalling act was clearly horrified and wrestling with their conscience, even uttering that "they would have to live with the actions for the rest of their lives" Richard's response? a grin and replying "oh go on! the money's good"
It is Carding''s portrayal of Richard as a murderous individual whose lust for power was also his undoing. But at the same time playing him as a human being who's actions were extreme but perhaps not entirely monstrous as had been previously implied. Indeed, under the powerful and accusatory stares of the ghosts who were haunting him one could almost feel a pang of sympathy for him. Richard had not received the security and sense of accomplishment that he had longed for and he realises that his murderous actions had added to his feelings of both emotional and physical inadequacy. Carding has created a wonderfully believable Richard that, complete with hugely effective hump and listless walk, ensures that the audience has not even the slightest hesitation in entering into the gory tableaux that is put before them. Carding has an impressive and lengthy experience with Shakespearean characterisation and the delivery of Richard's lines is both compelling and powerful.
Of particular note is the effective way that modern technology is used without it feeling unnecessary or gimmicky. Richard receives reports of the battle via mobile phone text, which serves as both a way to increase his irritation as the messages are often overlapping. This also nicely overcomes the issue of the lack of supporting cast who must deliver a particular piece of information at the relevant time. Carding also expertly deals with sudden thumps or noises without once dropping out of character which, coupled with the occasional ad lib to audience members, accentuates the authenticity of her performance.
As the play draws to an end and Richard falls to the floor, marking his own body with its own post it noted death certificate the audience are left in dumb founded awe. Carding herself after taking her well earned applause is clearly exhausted and this is not a performance that would convince without a 100% level of commitment and passion.
With the challenges of bringing theatre in a relevant way to an audience that is growing ever smaller and less willing to move outside of "what they know", it is hugely exciting to see Shakespeare brought to life in a way that still has the power to entrance. Whilst never taking away from the sheer brilliance of The Bard's writing, Carding's performance serves as a example to all. A statement of intent that no matter how hard and great the challenge to create and innovate there are still actors who are talented and bold enough to dream and dare to push the envelope. I leave the venue feeling that what I have experienced hasn't so much broken the fourth wall but smashed it to smithereens. Ventspleen May 24th 2016
