From the BBC:
“Arthur Hughes: First disabled
Richard III is 'big gesture' from RSC”
(Arthur Hughes in War of the
Roses)
Sir Antony Sher, Robert Lindsay,
Ian Richardson and Christopher Plummer are just a few of the consummate actors
to have played one of the most prized roles in English drama, Shakespeare's
deliciously evil Richard III. But although the Machiavellian anti-hero had
scoliosis, a curved spine, none of the esteemed actors to have played Richard
at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has had a physical impairment themself.
The days of "cripping
up" - a term disabled actors regularly use to describe those with no
physical impairment playing disabled characters - appear numbered now, though,
with Arthur Hughes taking on the coveted role later this month. He is not the
first disabled actor to do so - Mat Fraser played Richard at Hull Truck, in
2017, and Daniel Monks took on the role in Dick at the Donmar, in 2019 - but it
is a first for the RSC. "We need to have more disabled Richards. This is a
big gesture from the RSC... taking disability representation seriously,"
Hughes says. "Richard is one of the most famous disabled characters in the
English language. I've always wanted to play him. I think a lot of disabled
actors will think playing Richard is their birthright. "Every time a disabled actor plays
Richard, it's an important step for representation."
(Hughes is relishing the role of
the duplicitous villain)
Hughes, who has radial dysplasia
and identifies as "limb different", clearly cannot wait to get his
teeth into arguably his most challenging role to date. Since leaving drama
school, his experience of landing acting work has been largely positive, he
tells BBC News, with roles in plays such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, at
Sheffield's The Crucible, and Saint Joan, at London's Donmar Warehouse. His TV
credits include British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta)
award-winning Channel 4 drama Help and Netflix's The Innocents. Hughes is
currently undergoing the ideal preparation for his upcoming role - playing a
younger Richard in the RSC production of War of the Roses. But the actor, from Buckinghamshire,
was not always so confident. While at drama school, in Wales, he noted
"there wasn't much of a precedent" in terms of disabled actors he
could look up to.
(Hughes starred with Ruth Madeley
in Then Barbara Met Alan)
"It was only after I
graduated that I saw Ruth Madeley [who uses a wheelchair] in BBC One's Years
and Years," he says. "Here was an actor with a disability and
no-one's referencing it. It's not a part of the story. She is just there."
Earlier this year, Hughes played a disability-rights campaigner in BBC Two's
Then Barbara Met Alan, opposite Madeley, who has spina bifida. But while he
feels a responsibility to play roles where disability takes centre stage, Hughes
also wants to be seen in productions where the character just happens to have a
physical impairment. "I think it's good to play those parts [where
disability is a key part of the role] but it's also good for disabled actors to
play characters where it's incidental and disability is not specified," he
says. "That's the next step, where representation will be really
ubiquitous and powerful. Disability is obviously an important part of your
identity, but not the only part. “Why not have a disabled Macbeth?"
Othello syndrome
(Doran (left) took leave from the
RSC to care for husband Sher (right) when he was terminally ill)
Like the RSC's outgoing artistic
director, Greg Doran, Hughes believes "disabled characters should be
played by disabled actors", with the days of those with no mobility
impairment hunched over a cane to portray Richard presumably numbered. "You
don't have white actors playing Othello anymore. Time has moved on," he
says. Doran's late husband, Sir Antony Sher, took the role of Richard at the
RSC back in 1984 - but last month the director told the Times: "Tony's
performance now would probably not be acceptable. "It's the Othello
syndrome isn't it? That moment when white actors stopped thinking of Othello in
their repertoire, because it was not acceptable to have blackface any more, at
least until the level playing field is achieved. "It's the same with
disabled actors and Richard." Actor Simon Callow, in a letter to the Times
in response, disagreed over disabled casting, writing: "The theatre is a
gymnasium of the imagination. Both actors and audiences stretch their
imaginations there. Remove that element and you have a mere moving
photograph". The debate rages on but while directors can choose to move
with the times, Shakespeare's script will always be stuck somewhere around
1592.
'Drunk on power' In the
play, Richard calls himself "I that am rudely stamped… deformed,
unfinished, sent before my time".
How did Hughes handle the
language? "I've said openly in the rehearsal room that when we are
talking, we have to make a real distinction with the language we use and the
language that is used in the play - because it is horrible. We put a moratorium
on the word 'deformity' unless it was in the text," he says. Matthew
Duckett, who plays Catesby, one of Richard's acolytes, is also disabled. "We've
got two disabled people in the room. We need to be open about this... and just
make it safe, that we know the rules. But you need disabled voices in the room
to do that," Hughes says. And having a physical impairment brings
an understanding to the role an actor without one could never have. "Not
often, but people can judge me, or I will be stared at or underestimated... and
maybe pigeonholed. It is ingrained in some people that there is a hierarchy and
if you are disabled you are at the lower end of that hierarchy. All those
things, Richard experiences," Hughes says. "To draw on that is
a different thing to manufacturing it, to putting on a hump and a limp. "It's
a disabled body on stage playing Richard. Immediately, the work is done. I
understand what it is to be in this body." And Richard turns his
physical impairment to his advantage. "People can't pin him down.
Throughout the play, he deals in rumours, lies, gossip, duplicity, and to live
as this weird changing shadow is useful to him," Hughes says. "He's
existing outside this society that doesn't fully accept him. And that's where I
think he makes the decision, 'If I'm not going to be accepted in society, I
might as well play by my own rules. If these are the rules of this club, I
don't want to be in it.'" At the same time, there are many other
aspects of Richard's personality and motivations Hughes is looking forward to
showcasing. "The main character may be disabled but one of the more
tantalising things about the play is the rise of a tyrant, someone who wants
power but is not fit for it," he says. "It's about leaders who are
frightening and paranoid and drunk on power and will do anything to... keep it.
That's the timeless thing about this play." Richard III will run at the
Royal Shakespeare Theatre from Thursday 23 June to Saturday 8 October.
^ I really wish I could go see
this. It sounds great. ^
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