How do you see the character of Richard II?

Pendleton:  Ask me how I don't see him...  One thing I've learned over the years in playing so many Shakespearean roles -- three of them in two plays at Frog & Peach -- when you play roles so complex, what you're playing gets interpreted by the audience.  These characters are so complicated, they reflect off different people in different ways.  So, all I'll say is this -- that however he [Richard] feels about being king, it never occurs to him that it could ever be taken away.  I think he's doing a perfectly logical job of being king. (photo:  Austin Pendleton as Richard II and Ted Zurkowski as Bolingbroke)

It's a thing we don't understand anymore.  It's not political:  he's king for life.  He never reflects on what people think of his decisions, and then all of a sudden, the unthinkable happens.  Especially in America, there's almost no person who doesn't have some conception that he or she might be removed from office.  It's a mindset that's fascinating.  I don't think that he's determinedly doing a bad job or a reckless job; he's doing what he feels needs to be done.  He's a person who would never have been elected by the people to this position.

What you have to identify is anything in your life that you have no conception could ever be taken away from you.  Not just me, the audience has to do this.  

Benson:  I thought I knew the play.  I read it a few times when I knew it was under consideration for Frog & Peach to do.  I got deeper and deeper into it.  I did not realize how complex it was.  People will take away their own truth from it ...

Pendleton: There's no one person in the play who says what the play's about.

Is Richard the hero?

Pendleton:  No.  That's what makes it such a great play.

Zurkowski:  The audience is the hero.  That's what we do here at Frog & Peach.  We love to send the audience out talking.  I love it when people walk out arguing.

Pendleton:  ... About the play.

Zurkowski:  If you can do anything in this day and age to start up discourse ... 

Benson:  Yeah!  Ideas in this day and age are so ephemeral, especially in America. ...

Pendleton:  It's, "What's the bottom line?"

Zurkowski:  Then let's discard it .... You know, during the Bush-Gore recount thing, one thing that really bothered me -- commentators kept saying how America's not going to be able to stand waiting for the results, how Americans only love winners.  But life is really gray -- everyone really finds that out one day or another.  So, in the play, whether we color it one way or the other, we let the audience figure it out for themselves.

Benson:  This play is definitely for mature audiences.  If you can't handle -- 

Zurkowski:  Life -- 

Benson:  ... the fact that mom was not a saint and dad was not a good guy...

Pendleton:  ... that no one has the answer...

Benson: That's what's so tough to take.  

Zurkowski:  Anything you want is really up for grabs.  I guess I'm talking about my character [Bolingbroke] now.  We sort of figured out early on in this [said ironically] very lengthy rehearsal period, in this play no one says what he means.  

Benson:  If you ask me what the play is about, I'd say it's about masks.  We use them for all kinds of things -- to get away with things, to get what we want, in order to lie to ourselves.  The thing about wearing a mask, it does eventually become claustrophobic and you can't stand wearing it.  If there's a hero in the play, it's man or woman naked without illusions.  

Pendleton:  These characters are very limited people in a huge context.  

Zurkowski:  There is not a genius in this play -- there's no Richard III, no Hamlet.  

Can I talk about my character?

Sure!

Zurkowski:  The thing I'm having a good time with as Bolingbroke -- working with my director here -- I'm trying not to make the mistake of, "this guy has been planning this all along."  I'm leaving it open.  It may shift from night to night as to exactly what moment in the play it occurs to me that I am going all the way to the throne.  I've been thinking a lot about Napoleon ...

Pendleton:  That's great.

Zurkowski:  Yeah, a lot about Napoleon.  One thing that really fascinates me, whenever Bolingbroke is a the room with other guys, he hardly ever speaks.  Richard even calls him "silent king", which really pisses him off.  He's always waiting to see what happens .... I think he's a very good mariner, a very good sailor ... he always knows which way the wind is blowing.  And when he doesn't, he just shuts up.  

Pendleton:  [laughing]  This is certainly not true of my character! When he doesn't know what's happening, he talks more -- like a squid shooting ink.  

This play is based on actual historical events.  What kind of research did you do about the historical context?  

Zurkowski:  As always, we went to Isaac Asimov [Asimov on Shakespeare].  The entire article is quite wonderful.  We take the 10% that is actable and directable.  This is the fifteenth production for Frog & Peach and Asimov's article on it [Richard II] is the weirdest, most apologetic one ... You can sense the malaise of the play -- it's misty, it's foggy. 

Benson:  When things are gray, they're dangerous.  

Zurkowski:  One of the great things that Lynnea has given us as a director -- there's a scene where Richard is almost officially deposed.  There are eight guys on stage and we weren't sure whether to kneel or not.  We said, "what do I do here?" and Lynnea said, "just what you're doing."  Lynnea has taken a ritual and splattered it with mud.  'Cause life is muddy.  So that ultimately we're getting a play about people.