Richard III

With Evgenia Dodina as King Richard

Directed by: Itay Tiran

Why, I can smile and murder whiles I smile.

And cry “content” to that which grieves my heart.

And wet my cheeks with artificial tears.

And frame my face for all occasions.

"Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," Tolstoy wrote. "Richard III" is the story of such a family.

The royal offspring, raised in a family strife, a rejected, sickly, and fierce child turns into a malignant tumor that devours everything around him.

This family drama becomes a national tragedy in the play where the personal is inseparable from the political.

Centuries before Netflix, Shakespeare created the first serial killer. A magnificent freak, an eloquent and moving clown rapist who takes us on a thrilling journey of destruction. The wounded villain, who steps on corpses all the way to the throne, is a warning to all, a reflection of the terrible danger where the destruction of the family is followed by the destruction of the state.

First performance: September 11, 2023

Duration - aprox. 2 hours 50 minutes with intermission.

ABOUT THE MUSIC IN RICHARD III

The music in this production of Richard III plays a special and distinctive role, as it connects the "history play" to contemporary Israeli society. The songs that were chosen to be sung here are – each one in a different way – connected in the Israeli psyche to key moments in the country's myths, to national patriotic sentiments and to the collective memories of the spectators, but all of it presented in an ironical context.

For example, when the murderer commits his horrific executions he sings The Song For Peace, that is engraved in Israeli memory as a protest song of the Six Days' war but even more as the song thar prime-minister Rabin sang on stage in the peace rally in which he was assassinated (a blood-stained paper with the song's lyrics was found in his pocket). In another instance, Richard's coronation combines Handel's Coronation music with a nationalistic mob song. The second act opens with a song that was identified with the mass protests against the judiciary reforms – "I have no other country" – arranged as a lamentation.

The production juxtaposes throughout these milestones of Israel's national Songbook and presents them with a bitter twist of irony. They are sung on stage almost like church hymns, with an organ accompaniment, which makes them sound weird to Israeli ears – familiar songs in an estranged context, lyrical songs in a bloody atmosphere, idealistic songs distorted. Without adding one line of text to Shakspeare's play, the songs make the production terribly contemporary and mercilessly critical of Israel's present reality.

By Dori Parnes