Richard III

These are uncertain times. No one knows what tomorrow may bring. Who will rule, who will be overthrown? Who is still playing the game of power and who has already lost – lost the game, lost power and lost their life? Richard, Duke of Gloucester, wants to be more than just a pawn in this game. He wants to be the key player. The one who beats them all.

The war may be over, but Gloucester has no use for the new era. War is all that he is good at. What is he supposed to do in this society? What can he, the outsider, achieve in society? His looks and his nature make sure that he doesn’t stand a chance; this is what he has been told all his life, even by his mother. And so he stays in war mode and decides to stage his own play: society as a battle, life as close combat. His weapons: lies, tricks and machinations.

And nobody suspects how well this actually makes him fit into society. Gloucester is intelligent, he is fast and he is brutal. One chess move after the other, he finally becomes King Richard III, by his own and others’ countless dirty deeds.

William Shakespeare’s “King Richard III” is a powerful piece about hubris, unscrupulousness and the transgression of all norms. In the German translation by Thomas Brasch, it is both a clear-sighted psychological study and a dark horror play.

And Gloucester is never a lone perpetrator in all of this because he knows how to create allies – not just the characters in the play, but even us, the audience. But the higher up the power ladder he climbs after each evil deed, the more he is confronted with strong female characters like Lady Anne, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Margaret or his mother, the Duchess of York. Whether they are widows, mothers, wives or former regents – and often they are everything at the same time – they have survived old and new rulers and they can tell stories of loss and of what happens afterwards. They accompany the play like ghostlike Norns – and they also accompany Gloucester’s rise and fall: Because in the end, Richard III is nothing but a pawn among many others and he, too, is ultimately swept off the playing field.

Enrico Lübbe has been Schauspiel Leipzig’s artistic director since 2013. Following his productions of “Winterreise / Winterreise” (Schubert / Jelinek), “Faust I & II” (Goethe) and Büchner’s “Woyzeck”, he will now direct Shakespeare’s classic. “Richard III” will mark his first cooperation with Martin Zehetgruber at Schauspiel Leipzig. Zehetgruber often creates the sets for productions by Andrea Breth, Barbara Frey and Martin Kušej, and has received the Austrian Theatre Prize Nestroy for the best set and costumes several times as well as the title of Set Designer of the Year by the expert magazines Opernwelt and Theater heute. Sabine Blickenstorfer most recently created the costumes for “Das Gespenst von Canterville” and “Fischer Fritz” at Schauspiel Leipzig. She has worked extensively with Enrico Lübbe and Markus Bothe as well as with artists including Lorenzo Fioroni, Corinna von Rad, Barbara David Brüesch and Jonas Knecht. Bert Wrede has composed numerous scores, including music for films by Detlev Buck and Thomas Stuber, or for stage productions by Michael Thalheimer and Mateja Koležnik. His most recent work in Leipzig was the world premiere of a stage version of Richard Yates’ “Zeiten des Aufruhrs (Revolutionary Road)”, directed by Enrico Lübbe.