I catch Mark Kilmurry while he is rushing through the theatre, trying to stay on top of the thousand rambling details that go into any stage production. He is happy and articulate, if somewhat exhausted – you can hear it in his voice, as though he has waded through a swamp of molasses to reach the phone in time. I feel slightly bad for the interruption when things are clearly so busy, but then, I take solace in the fact thatRichard IIIisn’t exactly a breezy role to undertake.
With the title character’s hunched back and murderous greed, Richard III is hardly the stuff of romantic leads. Corruption, infanticide, it has it all. Conjuring such frenzy and ambition must take a lot of dedication, and Kilmurry (as the director and playing Richard himself) is following in the footsteps of a great many others who have famously raised a toast to the sun of York.
“I certainly think it’s one of Shakespeare’s greatest villains,” Kilmurry explains, “and it’s such a meaty role. I did Hamlet a few years ago, and Richard is another of those wonderful characters that stands out in a classic play.”
There must certainly be great artistic reward in undertaking the role of the bad guy – having the chance to strut the stage and commit actions that your better self would find deeply deplorable; to embrace the excess of evil. Kilmurry believes this fascination with the villain is common to us all.
“It’s something that’s true across the history of theatre. We love the baddie, as long as we’re not actually involved. People can happily watch violence, but are abhorred by real violence. I think there’s a sort of role-playing within that. Like going to see the gladiators centuries ago. We look at that now and think, ‘Thank God we don’t do that anymore.’ But fictional takes on violence, murder and villainy we find very interesting to watch. Richard is doing things that we wouldn’t dare, but to a certain point we still cheer him on, until things start getting a bit darker and nastier. We enjoy him going where we don’t dare to go.”
Productions of Shakespeare are so common, the challenge is to keep them fresh and appealing to those well-versed in the Bard. “There’s a sense of history that comes with putting these on,” says Kilmurry. “When you come to perform it you think of it as being an original piece without the baggage, as it were. You have to, in order to play it honestly.”
The timing for this production is also rather impressive. The remains of the real Richard III were discovered beneath a car park in Leicester in 2012, although researchers have been quick to establish that the historical picture of the former king differs greatly from his Shakespearean counterpart. This revelation is not all that troubling to Kilmurry; rather, the play’s the thing.
“This is definitely Shakespeare’s Richard III. In many modern dramas, when it’s based on somebody real there’s a huge artistic licence sometimes. With this version I don’t need to worry about that. Interesting that he was found – it’s great publicity for us, but that’s about it. If I were doing the real Richard III, I’d be playing him with only a slight stoop and worms,” Kilmurry laughs. “Dramatically, I don’t imagine that would be very interesting.”
Richard IIIis playing at theRiverside Theatre, Parramatta fromTuesday July 22 to Saturday July 26, tickets available online.
