Actor Seana McKenna is currently at The Tom Patterson Theatre playing Richard The Third as a man, directed by her husband Miles Potter. (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).
This is Canadian main stage first, and audiences are thrilling to the antics and asides of a period serial killer bent on blood stained revenge where evil knows no gender.
McKenna also stars in the remount of Canadian playwright Vern Thiessen's monodrama Shakespeare's Will at The Studio Theatre. And earlier this year, McKenna also performed author / playwright Joan Didion's poignant one woman show A Year of Magical Thinking.
2011 has been a very busy year for McKenna, and though she was playing two other main roles, Richard was always there "percolating" in the back of her mind.
Suite Playwrights and Stage Actors chatted with Seana McKenna earlier this season about playing Richard III before she donned the hump!
Seana McKenna, Miles Potter, Des McAnuff, and The Hump!
I believe it was Richard Monette that once said Richard III was all about the hump. Has this role been percolating between you and Miles for a while? Are you thinking about it a lot?
Seana McKenna: “You can’t really help thinking about it. It’s always there. I am reading not only the play, but other books, and thinking about it a lot. It might be more about the arm than the hump, or maybe it is the leg. I don’t know. Evil knows no gender.” (she laughs)
Based on what I have seen Miles Potter do in the past productions (Stratford’s Wild West Taming of the Shrew in 2003) I am sure he can make this work.
Seana McKenna: “We are really excited about it and we are thrilled that Des McAnuff is going to do it. I think it is really brave and a great risk, because it is. Other theatres across the world have been putting women into great Shakespearean male roles but we have not really done this here. Women have played male roles and we have cross-cast but not the big ones. It is daunting but exciting in a terrifying kind of way. I just think Richard (The Third) is a fascinating creature, and I am thrilled to get a glimpse into the male psyche in Shakespeare’s writing.”
Dangerous Liaisons Marquise de Mertoeil, Richard the Third - Similar Playfellows
Richard has some Marquise de Mertoeil in him as well. (McKenna played this role in Stratford's 2010 Dangerous Liaisons.)
Seana McKenna: “Absolutely, because Mertoeil behaves like a male in a way or what we are used to seeing as male behaviour. It is about vengeance and it is about maintaining power and it is about ego. There are a lot of things in there and their behaviour does come from rage and grief. There are all sorts of academic theories about Richard and where his behaviour comes from; whether it was that his mother hated him, whether it was that he was a cripple, whether it was that he was looked over although in reality he was Edward’s right hand guy. And then there are the historical people who say he wasn’t evil at all. And then there are academics who say yes he was. And yes he did kill those two kids in the tower but it is all fascinating. Richard is one of the great, great creations of Shakespeare. As a historical figure, he has fascinated historians and scholars for centuries.”
This is true and I bet you did a lot of research to understand this role.
Seana McKenna: “I have always been fascinated by Richard when I teach or when I am doing monologues with people and they do Richard and I say ‘great’. I have always loved working on those speeches and thinking, God, this is good stuff – the agility of thought and his humour. The great Shakespearean villains have asides. They talk to the audience and so they already create a kind of complicity with that audience. You are sitting there watching me do this and you are not doing anything which is kind of like the play itself, that they let this tyrant grow and they do not act.”
People will be thinking ‘oh cool Richard’ here is another BadAss.
Seana McKenna: “Well, yes perhaps. If the indication of how people were responding to Valmont and Mertoeil, in last year’s Dangerous Liaisons, it’s “give us more.”
Richard the Third, The Scottish King, The Dexters of their time?
It’s a little scary …. Richard is like a … Shakespearean … Dexter.
Seana McKenna: (laughing loudly) “Oh great. Or maybe Dexter is like Richard the Third or Macbeth. Once they stepped in, ‘to go backwards tedious is to go o’ver.’ Once you have started and you cross that line in the sand, it gets tedious as the Scottish king says. Once you are in there…. the lines in the sand are erased and there is no moral centre. We are so excited and I am thrilled we are doing Richard at the Patterson. I love that space and the audiences who come there love that space and they love the shows that they see. So it is great.”
It’s also revolutionary for women actors in the theatre ….
Seana McKenna: “There have been all female productions of Richard the Third, so women have played this part before. I am just thrilled that I am getting a shot to play this role as a man. I was in the last Richard as Elizabeth and that was a fabulous role. There are great women’s roles in this play and some other women will get to play those roles. I won’t be doing that this time!!! (she laughs but this time as her evil alter male ego!)
Richard The Third directed by Miles Potter, and also starring Martha Henry, Yanna Macintosh, Roberta Maxwell, and Wayne Best, continues at The Tom Patterson Theatre to Sept 25. For more info go to Stratford Festival
Coral Andrews - Coral Andrews is an independent media professional who has been writing in Canada for over 30 years.
Join the Conversation