Richard III

Enjoyably bloody and grotesque

- PEP BARBANY

"Blood and humour for the great villain of Shakespeare". That's how El Pais' Jacinto Antón described the production of Richard III which the Propeller company performed last December at the Festival Temporada Alta de Girona. Written around 1592, the protagonist of Richard III is a disturbed miscreant inside a disabled body who deceives and who, in the end is, himself, the victim of a complex deception.

The work concludes Shakespeare's War of the Roses cycle, which begins with the three instalments of Henry VI. Both this play and The Comedy of Errors, which Propeller is presenting in a double bill at this year's Festival de Otoño en primavera, relate to the playwright's early career. Both works have close links through a common use of language.

According to Edward Hall, the director of Propeller: "In Richard III, there is an amazing mix of political terror and comic situations which, in the end, means the audience no longer knows what is black and what is white". Hall opts for a stripped-down and bloody stage setting to highlight the terrifying nature of the protagonist, combined with a heavy and humorous irony. "What I'm trying to set about doing is something very physical which is also very clearly gothic horror", concludes the architect of this acclaimed cocktail of blood, black humour and testosterone, which the Periódico de Catalunya called "a gore-covered Shakespeare".

Richard III was performed for the first time in Coventry's Belgrade Theatre in the UK on November 18 last year.

www.propeller.org.uk