STAGE REVIEW : Grove Shakespeare Fest Faces Politics With Its ‘Richard II’

Shakespeare’s primer on political power, “Richard II,” opened the 10th Grove Shakespeare Festival on Saturday amid a demonstration of the importance of political power.

In the wake of decisions by the Garden Grove City Council last week to grant only $20,000 of the Grove Theatre Company’s request for a $53,000 advance on its 1988-89 city appropriation, artistic director Thomas F. Bradac and board member Robert Dunek appealed to the audience for contributions before the play began. According to Dunek, $30,000 must be raised in the next two weeks or the festival’s remaining full-scale productions, “The Comedy of Errors” and “King Lear,” are “in jeopardy.”

Bradac and other staff members, as well as scattered members of the audience, wore plastic hard hats as a symbol of solidarity with the fund-raising effort. The hats were a reference to the comment by Councilman Raymond T. Littrell, the leading opponent of the Grove’s request, that “this community is a hard-hat community, and very few hard-hats take in Shakespeare.”

Actually, “Richard II” can be read as the triumph of a hard-hat. Bolingbroke (Gregory Mortensen) is a man of action, popular with the masses, always thinking of what’s practical instead of what’s poetic.

His opponent, King Richard (Gregory Itzin), is absorbed in his thoughts, his fantasies, his reflection. His moods vacillate wildly, and he loses his kingdom because he can’t quite manage to be in the right place at the right time.

Itzin is terrific at painting a picture of Richard as a dreamy incompetent, sometimes charming but sometimes imperious. During the first part of the play, he wears a goatee and hair style that are reminiscent of Zonker in “Doonesbury.” When we see him putting on his crown for the first time, his eyes are closed and his face is unsmiling; he doesn’t relish the responsibility. But then he looks in a mirror and smiles; he does like the way he looks in that crown.

When the crown slips out of his grasp, after intermission, Richard shaves off his beard. And, by the last scene, he’s wearing nothing but his pants. We can see how young and slight he looks; today he would be accused of not appearing “presidential.”

But having come through the fire, he’s no longer just a wispy kid who’s going to float away. Itzin gets down and dirty, convincingly so, in that last scene. Furthermore, his voice is almost royal enough to compensate for his looks. He handles the poetry with sufficient power to keep us listening.

In the most original feature of Jules Aaron’s staging, composer Chuck Estes has provided a musical motif for Richard that also emphasizes his diffuse, distractible personality. It’s a fragment of hallucinatory sound: strings prolonging chords, accompanied by a light dash of percussion and whispered, inaudible voices. While they violate historical consistency, these recurrent sounds do indicate why Richard has a hard time accomplishing anything.

When Bolingbroke is finally alone for the first time since his ascension to the throne, at the end of the play, he suddenly hears the same sounds. Even hard-hats are not impermeable to certain disturbing stimuli.

Generally, Mortensen’s Bolingbroke is cold and efficient, Richard’s opposite in every way. The most focused of the other characterizations were those of the Duke of York (Harry Frazier) and his family (Marnie Crossen and Ferdinand Lewis as insolent Aumerle).

Many of the other dukes and earls are something of a blur--a problem in the play that Aaron hasn’t conquered. Judith Hawking, as Richard’s queen, either has a hard time with the language or is unsuccessfully aiming for a foreign accent, and there are other signs of unseasoned work in minor roles.

Designer D. Martyn Bookwalter made a throne and a sepulcher out of the same piece of furniture, certainly an appropriate piece of symbolism. Otherwise the set consists of posts, platforms, stairs and a handy turntable. Claire Marie Verheyen’s costumes transcend predictable period outfits only once: when Bolingbroke emerges in surprisingly lavish robes after intermission. Could he fall prey to the same self-absorption that brought down Richard?

In the program, Garden Grove Mayor J. Tilman Williams wrote: “It’s . . . a pleasure to note the tremendous professional growth of the Grove Theatre Company and to see more and more regional recognition of the excellence of these productions. As a progressive community, we are proud of our cultural events.”

Last week Williams voted against the Grove’s request for funds and suggested that the city lease the facilities to a profit-making dinner theater. He might well have quoted Richard himself: “I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads. . . . And my large kingdom for a little grave.”

Performances are at the outdoor Festival Amphitheatre, 12852 Main St., Garden Grove, Fridays through Sundays at 8:30 p.m., through July 16. Tickets: $15-$18; (714) 636-7213.

‘RICHARD II’

Shakespeare’s play, presented by the Grove Shakespeare Festival. Directed by Jules Aaron. Set by D. Martyn Bookwalter. Lighting by David Palmer. Sound by John Fisher. Music by Chuck Estes. Costumes by Claire Marie Verheyen. Hair and makeup by Gary Christensen. With Gregory Itzin, Daniel Bryan Cartmell, Gregory Mortensen, John Walker, Harry Frazier, Ferdinand Lewis, David Mack, French Stewart, Jeff Stevens, Joel Goldes, Rick Tigert, Dan Christiaens, Carl Palmer, Pascal Marcotte, Russell Terry, Marc Whitmore, Kevin Jones, Ramsey Faragallah, Jim McLean, Kurt Weichert, Lawrence Wenner, Steve Wikoff, Judith Hawking, Marnie Crossen, John Drahos, Brein Mason, Ronnie Lopez, Wendi De Barros, Kevin Jones.