SOURCE: Isherwood, Charles. Review of Richard II. Variety 391, no. 11 (4 August 2003): 30.

In the following review, Isherwood presents a favorable review of Tim Carroll's 2003 Globe Theatre staging of Richard II, particularly admiring the intimate rapport that Mark Rylance's Richard established with the audience.

The gentleness that is a particularly appealing element of Mark Rylance's stage persona is put to fine use in his performance as Shakespeare's diffident Richard II at Shakespeare's Globe. Rylance's Richard is the affecting center of this all-male staging by Tim Carroll that clearly presents the king's failings as a ruler and diplomat—and human being—but also clarifies the ennobling effects of his downfall.

Rylance's Richard has the manner of a bored child in the play's early scenes, when he presides somewhat peevishly over the dispute between Bolingbroke (Liam Brennan) and Mowbray (Terry McGinity). He's a monarch who has never learned the proper manners of a...