SOURCE: Feingold, Michael. “Here's Richardness.” The Village Voice 43, no. 10 (10 March 1998): 141.

In the following review, Feingold appraises two productions of Richard II, one by the Theatre for a New Audience at New York City's St. Clement's Theater, directed by Ron Daniels, and the other staged by the Pearl Theatre. Feingold observes that while both plays had their strengths as well as effective scenes, each seemed to lose something as it went on. Reviewing Pearl's production, directed by Shepard Sobel, Feingold states that while it was not as vivid as Daniels's production, it had a stronger grasp of the play as poetry.

To have one company play Richard II and Richard III in alternation makes sense. The two unheroic heroes are opposite extremes on the spectrum of kingship: the king who gives up all too easily and the shameless one who stops at nothing. Each has an antagonist, too, with...