SOURCE: King, Robert L. Review of Richard II. The North American Review 280 (November-December 1995): 41-2.

In the following review, King offers a positive assessment of the National Theatre's staging of Richard II, directed by Deborah Warner and starring Fiona Shaw as an impressive Richard.

The National Theatre presented Richard II in repertory with Skylight in the smallest of its three houses, the Cottesloe. Of all Shakespeare's kings, Richard is the most dependent on speech to assert a self because for much of the play he has no real power. The director, Deborah Warner, who had her King Lear enter in a party hat and wheelchair, cast a woman in the title role, the justly acclaimed Fiona Shaw. Richard seemed ready to take a wild ride. From the seating arrangement to Shaw's forceful resistance to death, however, the production honored and illuminated Shakespeare's text. The audience at floor level was...