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The essential feeling of Shakespeare in the Park is a breeze.
No matter the show, theres always some moment when you feel the night moving against your skin.
Lighter pieces are easiest, because they sway with the air.
Its therefore already a challenge to get ShakespearesRichard IIIto work at the Delacorte.
You need tension, clarity, and a meticulously delivered text.
Her Richard is an entitled aristo rather than a calculating imp, a swaggeringT.
rexinstead of a darting velociraptor.
Or maybe the production is fighting itself.
CuttingRichard IIIis always a fraught proposition.
You have to explain some things: Who is this ranting, witchy Margaret?
Which Edward just died?
(There are several.)
Now the sequence consists of a single up-n-down from a stage elevator loaded with dead aristocrats.
Its very Disneys Haunted Mansion.
Yet the cutting isnt the main issue, not every time.
The deepest problems are rooted in OHaras visual storytelling, which rarely clarifies and often confuses.
So what does the show look like?
(Gurira even has little fleurs-de-lis shaved into her hairline.)
Mothers dont touch their sons; victims dont avoid their killers.
Its hard to tell who is related, even sometimes who is dead.
OHara is most interested in subverting Shakespeares language about Richards body.
For now, theyre swamped by the narrative muddle all around them.
OHaras finest moments are when two characters have a nasty little exchange.
Gurira isnt the only woman playing a terrible guy this week.
What a strange and slippery comedyDom Juanwas and is.
But Ashley Tatas production runs into some of the same potholes that OHaras does.
In the case ofDom Juan, the originals morality hinges on both Dom Juansandsocietys cruelty to women.
Families do not look like each other: Okay, yes.
But when they dontactlike families?
Words and images sometimes mean their opposites here, and its not always clear when thats true.
Were OHaras storytelling more confident, were the relationships more clear, we could afford more of this anti-illustration.
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