Hong Kong Repertory’s Richard III is modern and brutal

And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
Richard III. Act 1 sc 3

We often associate Shakespeare with classic theatre but Dr Lam Lap-sam, director of HK Rep’s coming production of Richard III says Shakespeare is hip. ‘He is hip because his works never fall out of date. They are immortal. Although his works were written centuries ago, audiences in the modern world can understand them without difficulty because ultimately they are about human beings,’ he says. That, however, doesn’t mean his actors are finding Shakespeare’s play a breeze: Both local theatre icon Chung King Fai and TVB heartthrob Bowie Lam are groaning at the Bard’s lines. Lam has been acting since the mid ’80s but is a newcomer to stage work. ‘There are six pages of dialogue to remember for each scene and they are not meant for human beings to remember,’ he moans only half-jokingly. ‘I may consider moving into Chung’s home so we have more time to rehearse.’

Richard III, one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, tells of the Machiavellian rise to power and the downfall of the last of the Yorkist kings. Eight-time Hong Kong Drama Awards Best Actor Chung King Fai will take the lead role as the crippled and hunchbacked Richard, while Bowie Lam plays the Duke of Buckingham, originally a friend who helps Richard ascend the throne but who is subsequently betrayed and murdered by him. The play originally runs to four-and-a-half hours but Lam has reduced it to two and a half, though that has nothing to do with the difficulty of the lines. ‘I want to focus on the psychological change of Richard III in this production – his desire for power, the motive behind his killings and his dark side,’ the director says. As so he has cut anything that may hinder his exploration of the villain’s mind.

That is not to say the production will be all murkiness and misery. Lam stresses that it will be a total theatre experience with comedy, tragedy and romance, singing and dancing as well as bloodshed and even an encounter with a ghost or two. He says thanks to the huge advances in technology, Shakespeare’s works can now be presented in innovative ways he is sure the playwright himself would have used had the technology been available to him.

In this play only two characters, Richard being one, are killed on stage. Although much is made of Richard’s ruthless extermination of those who stand in his way to the throne (particularly the two boy princes, the sons and heirs of his brother Edward IV), all violence is committed off stage. Perhaps Shakespeare was sensitive to the royals in his audience – especially those who had some ancestral connection to Richard III – and so avoided public killing scenes that could cause offence. After all, this was the playwright’s bread and butter. Yet Lam has consciously looked for ways to rub his audiences’ faces in the brutality.

‘It’s true that the king would come to see his play, so how can [Shakespeare] kill a king in his play? But from what I know about Shakespeare, I believe if he had the stage technology we have today, he would have loved to put those killings on stage too. It is not showing brutality for the sake of showing it. I think these killings can explain the psychological changes in Richard,’ says Lam, as he hints that the murder of Buckingham will be the bloodiest of all. ‘And that is another reason why Shakespeare is hip. Directors are free to choose whether to put the killings on or off stage because the play itself has the breadth for us to interpret.’

It may come as some surprise that although the 72-year-old Chung King Fai has been an iconic figure in the local theatre scene for more than three decades, this will be the first time he plays a Shakespearean role. ‘Probably it is because I studied drama in the States, and when I came back to Hong Kong in the ’70s, I tended to introduce the works of American playwrights,’ he explains. He was, indeed, the first dramatist to bring Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman to Hong Kong audiences, and earned a Best Actor award for his portrayal of Willy Loman.

The cold-blooded and complicated Richard III has proved to be a challenge for the venerable Chung, who has seldom played a villain. When asked what, for him, is the most thrilling part of the play, he says, ‘To see how such a bad guy dies. He has killed so many people and his desire can never be satisfied.’ Anti-heroes and the dark side have often appealed to both actors and audiences in film and on stage (think the Joker in The Dark Knight), but Chung has no sympathy for his character – nor does he want the audience to have any. ‘There is no way to justify what he has done. I can emphasize his sense of inferiority because he is lame and a hunchback and that is why he turns evil. But you cannot sympathize him – it doesn’t justify the killing.’

Richard III will be staged at the HK Cultural Centre Grand Theatre from July 11, 14-18, 20-21 at 7:45pm, and on July 12 and 19 at 2:45pm. Tickets are from $340-$120 from URBTIX, 2734 9009. In Cantonese with English surtitles.