Branagh Excels in ‘Richard III’

Two British actors have returned to the stage with different results.

Kenneth Branagh is playing to sold-out audiences at the Crucible Theatre, giving one of the most bracing performances of his career in “Richard III.” But Jude Law’s appearance at London’s Young Vic as the title character in Christopher Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus” is just plain boring.

From the very outset, Branagh’s Richard captures a startled audience. The actor delivers Richard’s celebrated opening soliloquy clad only in underpants, his body strapped into a contraption that looks like a cross between a medieval rack and some frighteningly chic bed frame.

The impact is twofold. It presents Richard almost literally laid bare as he is laying himself bare to the audience. That first speech tips us off to the malformed wretch that Richard feels himself to be, well before he begins exerting the venomous charm that will ultimately carry him through to the throne.

Physically, you get the disturbing sense that Richard is trying to have himself stretched, as if a machine could put right the misshapen body that has contributed to poisoning his spirit.

In front of the various women whom Richard woos, he stands stiff-backed and upright. Elsewhere, alone and unclothed, he’s a pitiful, pasty-faced figure with a bum leg and a limp and useless arm that, at one point, finds him crawling abjectly across the stage.

As directed by Michael Grandage, Branagh’s Richard is funny, chilling and poignant all at once.

The first two qualities are common enough in a play about so enjoyably vile a central figure. For all Richard’s murderous intent as he climbs to the throne, he is a malevolently funny showman whose asides to the audience win comic respect.

But Branagh goes well beyond this evil jokester; he presents a Richard wrestling with endless pain. Nor is the performance just about physical trappings; Richard’s ravaged soul remains as visible as his sad, stooped body.

Branagh, who started in theater, has returned to the stage after a 10-year absence during which he pursued a film career as an actor and director. His re-emergence is a revelation.

Less successful is Law’s return to the stage after a two-year absence. Law is starring in a Young Vic Theatre Company production of Marlowe’s infrequently staged play.

The play traces its own deathly arc in which the scholarly Faustus sells his soul to the devil and faces a life of damnation. Law works hard to diminishing effect, and his performance turns out to be a bore.

The low comic interludes--such as the arrival of the Seven Deadly Sins--in director David Lan’s production make for unfunny viewing.

And where Branagh’s supporting cast mostly shines (Barbara Jefford is especially good as a vengeful Queen Margaret), the six actors who appear with Law are tiresome.

You have to admire the stamina of a performer who has chosen a leap into the deep end of the dramatic repertoire. As it happens, Law was educated at the same south London school as the first-ever Faustus--Edward Alleyn, back in 1589.

But despite a charismatic star’s valiant efforts, the play just sits there. It runs through May 4.