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Drama Season Concludes With a Murderer in Our Midst By DAVID L. TOWNSEND
As a concerned member of the Juilliard community, I feel it is my duty to inform you that we have a killer in our midst. He's a villain so dastardly that he is wanted for no less than 10 counts of murder in the first degree, and war crimes too heinous to mention in these pages. This "abortive, rooting hog" roams freely and at this very moment is plotting the overthrow of the government.
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| P.J. Paparelli (far right) leads a rehearsal for Richard III with (left to right) alumnus Steve Boyer (partially hidden), Jessica Collins, Oscar Isaac, and Jacob Fishel. (Photo by Lisa Yelon) |
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Luckily, the "poisonous bunch-backed toad" is easily recognizable, as he was "rudely stamped" and brought "unfinished" into this world. His right shoulder-blade is abnormally large and produces a pronounced hump; his left leg is slightly shorter than his right, causing him to limp severely. With dirty blond hair and blue eyes, he stands about 5' 9" tall and weighs about 150 lbs. Though he answers to a host of aliases—"Fiend," "Son of Hell," "Bottled Spider, "Hedgehog," "Misshapen Dick," and "Duke of Gloucester"—authorities have uncovered that his real name is Jacob Fishel. Mr. Fishel has been cleverly masquerading as a talented, affable drama student here at The Juilliard School, for the past two-and-a-half years. Please beware! Though he may look friendly, he is extremely dangerous. Since being cast in the title role of this year's final third-year drama production—Shakespeare's Richard III, directed by P.J. Paparelli—Mr. Fishel has been seen publicly "dream[ing] on sovereignty" and acting "subtle, false and treacherous." If you see him in the halls or in the elevator, stay clear of him: He is "determined to prove a villain" and considered armed and dangerous.For those of you who have criminal tendencies and would be interested to see this brilliant mastermind at work, I strongly advise you to come see Mr. Fishel (and the rest of his third-year cohorts) in what promises to be a spectacular production of Richard III, as Group 34 moves into the Drama Theater this May.Richard III is one of Shakespeare's most infamous and popular works. For more than 400 years, the world's greatest actors have attempted to master the "dreadful minister of hell." Starting with Richard Burbage, a contemporary of Shakespeare who was regarded as the premier actor of the Elizabethan age, on down to Junius Brutus Booth (father of the actor Edwin and the assassin John Wilkes), John Barrymore, Henry Irving, Ian McKellen, Al Pacino, Sir Alec Guinness, Alan Bates, George C. Scott, and Denzel Washington, many actors have tried to put a human face on this force of evil.P.J. Paparelli believes a key to this character, this play, and this world is to understand the larger context of history. Richard III is actually the fifth in a five-play series about the warring houses of Lancaster and York, vying for the throne of England. More than a century before Richard III, Richard II took the throne at the age of 10. He was subsequently deposed by the rebellious Henry IV, initiating a downward spiral of death and betrayal for the next 100 years. Shakespeare's "history plays" (as they are often called) depict the deposition of Richard II (in Richard II) and the subsequent fighting at home in England and, more notably, with France (in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V). Finally, the famous English civil war known as "The War of Roses" is catalogued in Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3.At the end of this war, known as the Hundred Years War, the House of York is in control of the throne, with Edward IV as King. This is where Paparelli has decided to begin his version of Richard III. Borrowing a few scenes from the end of Henry VI, Part 3, the audience will see Edward IV take the throne and Richard wake from the dream that sets in motion his personal campaign for the crown. This dream is the true genesis of Richard's rise to power, prompting him to ask, if he is ready to take his own life, why can't he take the lives of others? Richard now emerges as the sum of all of the pestilence, war, and betrayal that has ravaged the country for years. For England to be purged and begin again in pure peace, Richard must die.
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Richard III
Drama Theater
Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday; May 11, 12, 15, and 16; 8 p.m.
For ticket information, please see
the calendar.
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"The basic framework rests on the examination of good and evil. Richard III is a 'morality play' in which we follow a character through a series of temptations, until eventually he is destroyed by his vices," explains Paparelli. "What I am interested in as a director, and what I believe Shakespeare was interested in as a writer, is breaking down the ideas of good and evil. I want to question why we perceive things as good or as evil. By taking this huge story and turning it into a series of human decisions and human situations, I will hopefully enable the audience to walk away thinking about Richard's complex motives or tendencies and how they apply to our own lives.""I want the design of the show to be on a grand, almost operatic scale," says Paparelli of the production. The world "where we lay our scene" reflects this examination of good vs. evil. The majority of the set is a black wasteland, strewn with bits of trash and rubble from the battles and complete with a great black hole in the floor of the theater, embodying the cannibal spirit in the land. Beyond this world of carnage lies a pristine and distant memory of peace and purity, a completely white background, covered in virgin snow. The costumes for a play with this many characters have a duty to help the audience delineate characters' heritage and personalities. The House of York is signified with a white rose, while the House of Lancaster uses a red rose—and throughout the play, there are subtle uses of red and white, to clarify a character's allegiance. Purples and blues are used to signify the status of royalty, with a wide variety of earth tones for the lower-class citizens.Richard III marks P.J. Paparelli's first directing venture here at Juilliard. For the past six years, he has been working hand-in-hand with Michael Kahn, the Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division here at Juilliard, at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, where Paparelli serves as associate artistic director. Kahn has been a valuable mentor for Paparelli, passing on his insights about how to administrate a theater, and maintain a high level of artistic integrity. Before moving to Washington, Paparelli worked for the Public Theater here in New York, where he had his first experiences with Shakespeare as a teenager. He has recently finished co-writing a play about the Columbine shootings—an experience, he says, "that has completely altered me as an artist and a person." Certainly Columbine would be a delicate subject, but Paparelli feels that is necessary to investigate such incidents so that we can attempt to understand what happened and what those boys were going through. Through the power of theater, we may then try to effect social change and curb it from happening again. (Not unlike Shakespeare's examination of Richard III.)All of us have been outcasts at some point in our lives, just like Richard. All of us have been jealous or greedy, or simply wanted to be loved. It is easy to hate Richard or hate the Columbine snipers, but we as artists must imagine that things are not so black-and-white. We must risk liking outcasts, in order to understand the forces that shape them.Third-year drama student David Townsend plays a host of lovable murderers in Richard III.
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