'Richard III' at People's Light: Daring, astounding, a joy to watch

Modern Shakespeare productions sometimes take bizarre liberties with the Bard's work. But the daring presentation of Richard III now running at People's Light is an astounding staging and a joy to watch.

We first meet the fabled villain in Henry VI. There, Richard promises "to set the murderous Machiavel to school." In Richard III he makes good on his word and becomes a paradigm of evil (or a "sociopath" in modern speak).

He is usually presented as a menacing figure. With a relish for direct address, Richard is like a serial killer who taunts the police, and you become his uneasy confidante. But in Pete Pryor's deft performance, Richard is so gay the audience was laughing all night.

Few scholars now believe Richard was so diabolical. Shakespeare presents him as the scourge of God whose destruction paves the way for the righteous Tudors. With a wink and a nod, Pryor's Richard lets you know the play itself is an act of Machiavellian ingratiation.

Yet you do feel the terror of his apocalyptic world. The surreal set is like the courtyard of a destroyed factory complex, dark and smoky, with metal balconies and rubble that resonates as crippled Richard hobbles over his ruinous realm. (Set and sound design are by Jorge Cousineau.)

Christopher Patrick Mullen is fine as Buckingham, and the cast strongly perform multiple roles. But next to Richard they are all mere dupes in waiting, like stars in daytime that shine only when Richard's darkness overtakes them.

Director Samantha Reading takes her own creative liberties. Richard III is early Shakespeare, overly long and full of rhetorical devices. Reading thankfully clips stilted verbiage and speeds up the pace.

She is at her best at the end, when Richard's iron will cannot control the "coward conscience" of nightmares that seem so real. And Reading makes full use of her wonderfully macabre set in choreographing the best theater battle sequence I have ever seen.

Richard III also makes political commentaries that continue to resonate. When Richard spouts pieties, he resembles a modern politician. We too have "God on our side," after all, in times of war.