(L to R) Mike Dolan as Prince Edward, Jake Lowenthal as Richard III, Joseph Dolan as Young York [Photo by Aaron Flacke]
Hump-backed, hateful, politically murderous Richard III is the most hideous of Shakespeare’s kings. Resentful of his physical deformities, Richard achieves his vengeful power by deceit, manipulation, and even the killing off of his young nephews. The Theater at Monmouth stages Richard III this summer under the direction by Dawn McAndrews, in a production that presents the dual treachery and tediousness of divided politics, and that suggests not Richard’s physical hump but his own self-loathing as his ugliest and most dangerous deformity.
The physique of this Richard III (Jake Loewenthal) isn’t particularly grotesque to look at — his hump and limp are evident but, at least initially, not especially exaggerated; his sling and leather leg brace blend reasonably well with his black-and-leather look; and, as embodied by Loewenthal, Richard is an attractive man, young and slim with an elegant, fine-boned face. His ugliness rises to the surface as his insecurities and vitriol do, in a carefully calibrated performance by Loewenthal: when his power is questioned or threatened, we see it in his bulging eyes and the twitching muscles of his face, in his good hand clutching the one in the sling, in how the curve of his hump suddenly deepens and sends him stumbling.
