By Karli Korszeniewski
UC Santa Barbara’s department of Theater and Dance saw a strong start to its fall line-up with a closing performance of it latest run ofThe Death of Kings, adapted and directed by professor Irwin Appel. The Naked Shakes company had recently returned from an exciting summer performance in Verona, Italy, where it also staged the play to close the Verona Shakespeare Fringe Festival.
The ensemble of 13 actors was constantly moving, portraying multiple characters while switching scenes, simultaneously advancing the storyline. The Death of Kings combines Shakespeare’s plays Richard II and Richard III, spanning over 400 years of history.
Preston Jones playing Richmond, later King Henry VII, being crowned. Photos by Jeff Liang and Marek Sawicki
The play is intended for Shakespeare lovers and non-Shakespeare lovers. Last weekend’s first performance sold out, filling the theater.
The production featured intense stage combat and live music composed by Santa Barbara-based musician James Connolly. Audience member Abby Groff said the effect was intense.
“My favorite part of the play was both the stage combat and also the sound. The live music was a good touch,” said Groff, a second-year student majoring in English.
These historical Shakespeare plays are not as widely known as Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, which Naked Shakes performed during the last school year. With that relative obscurity comes surprise, which Appel and his cast used to their advantage.
The audience witnesses the death of multiple monarchs. The lighting, choreography, music, and staging are all integral to the show’s impact, Appel said in an interview. For instance, the absence of a set helps the audience focus on what the actors say, offering few opportunities for the audience to be distracted during the performance.
The play’s themes of power, demise, and betrayal, all feel current to today’s events, even while retaining Shakespearean dialogue.
“What I’ve learned is that if you make Shakespeare accessible, if you make it relevant, make it come from the heart and make it really exciting, people who think they don’t like Shakespeare or had a bad experience with Shakespeare end up loving it,” Appel said.
The Death of Kings is no simple love story or great tragedy but something more complex, going beyond one situation or set of characters. Different cast members narrate throughout the play, which helps the audience follow the extensive historic timeline. In one scene, the audience will be laughing at a French maid’s pronunciation of the word ‘elbow’, and next they’ll be witnessing a war.
When Naked Shakes performed in Verona in late August, the company had to reformat and run everything in a new theater in less than one day. The audience was watching from above in the Verona theater, so the cast had to readjust to projecti their performances upwards. But they adapted to a new venue in a European city within one day.
“Last year I was Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. This year I’m playing two roles — technically three if we’re counting chorus narration,” said actor Ahlora Smith. “That was more of a bubbly show than this one. This one is way more intense and I’m just screaming my lungs out at one point. It’s insane.”
The murder of Joan of Arc (Ahlora Smith) in UCSB’s production of Death of Kings. Photos by Jeff Laing and Marek Sawicki
Irwin Appel says The Death of Kings has transformed over the last five years. Performed initially as two plays, it is now one epic performance, with what he calls “a big series finale.” In this final scene, King Richard III faces everyone he has betrayed in the past and is finally overthrown. By the finale, it is as if the audience had gone through what feels like 400 seasons of this show.
Irwin Appel is traveling this week to Poland to direct another version of The Death of Kings and he will be a visiting professor at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.
UCSB Theater and Dance already has a strong series of events lined up to follow this performance. The Naked Shakes company will return in the summer and welcomes anyone wanting to get involved.
Karli Korszeniewski is a second-year Film and Media studies major at UC Santa Barbara. She is a Web and Social media intern with the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.