Peter Dinklage as Richard III

[foxy]

Brush up your Shakespeare and go see this wonderful production at the Public Theater in NY http://www.publictheater.org It stars Peter Dinklage who you might have seen last year in the film "The Station Agent". He gives a brilliant performance and is strikingly handsome. For someone under 4 foot tall he has a very powerful stage presence.

 

Across the street from the theater is the still chic restaurant "Indochine" that has a 3 course, prix fixe, pre-theater dinner for $25, which is a NY bargain, served between 5:30 and 7:30pm. The food is excellent, the setting striking and the servers and patrons are very attractive.

[+ Lucky]

Foxy, I am so glad that you had a good night out at the theater in New York. This is a reminder of why NY is such a great place to be.

 

Now, as to the performer, that name just made me think "peter shrinkage".

[CT Dick]

He was great in The Station Agent.

 

http://www.variety.com/graphics/photos/reviews/rstation_agent.jpg

 

Dick

[Will]

And both Foxy's review and Lucky's post remind me of the delightful evening I spent with them for dinner and NAKED MEN SINGING!

[BigK]

I agree a delightful movie, currently available on ppv.

[Guest rohale]

>Brush up your Shakespeare and go see this wonderful

>production at the Public Theater in NY http://www.publictheater.org

>It stars Peter Dinklage who you might have seen last year in

>the film "The Station Agent". He gives a brilliant performance

>and is strikingly handsome. For someone under 4 foot tall he

>has a very powerful stage presence.

 

 

Oh indeed, I'm planning on seeing " Richard III " on Oct 16. I'm very much looking forward to seeing Peter Dinklage on stage in this spectacular play. This part has been played by many actors in the past. On film, late great Sir John Gielgud, Richard Burton, Kenneth Branagh and the legendary Richard Harris. On stage, I saw Al Pacino a few years give an impressive performance. I certainly have not forgotten seeing the ever so legendary Sir Peter O'Toole at the West End give a riveting performance years ago. Peter Dinklage is in brilliant company, to say the least.

 

I too saw the " The Station Agent ". I absolutely loved the movie. Quite a number of brilliant performances. Mr Dinklage had a minor role in " Elf " starring Will Ferrell. I hope this actor continues, he seems to go from strength to strength in each of his performances, both on stage and film.

 

Still I cant wait to be in New York in less than two weeks. A city that never sleeps as Ole Blue Himself, Frank Sinatra used to say.

 

Rohale

[Guest DickHo]

"This part has been played by many actors in the past. On film, late great Sir John Gielgud, Richard Burton, Kenneth Branagh and the legendary Richard Harris."

 

Let's not forget Sir Ian McKellen in Richard Locraine's fantastic 1995 version.

[foxy]

I recently read that Mr. Dinklage is 4 foot 6 inches tall and not the "under 4 foot" that I estimated. I guess that makes me a rotten size queen. Excuse me while I go measure something.

[+ Lucky]

Peter Dinklage has a nice write-up in today's New York Daily News.

[+ Charlie]

You read the Daily News?! You are destroying all my illusions about you!

[+ Lucky]

Sir, have ye no illusions. I do not read the National Enquirer or Star magazine, but I do check out the Daily News, the Post, and the 2 Times everyday.

[Ignoto]

>Peter Dinklage has a nice write-up in today's New York Daily

>News.

 

And a lousy review....

 

In the case of the Public's current, unthinking production of "Richard III," the gimmick is Peter Dinklage, from the film "The Station Agent," who is a dwarf.

 

Dinklage has a rich, deep voice and a somber visage that could be useful in playing one of Shakespeare's most bloodthirsty villains.

 

But to make the tragedy work would require a director who had actually considered the consequences of a man far shorter than everyone around him displaying an outsize ambition.

 

In his famous opening monologue, Richard describes himself as "Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time/Into this breathing world, scarce half made up."

 

In any production there should be the sense that Richard is a malignant, repellent creature. The best Richard I've ever seen, English actor Antony Sher, had his hump placed in the center of his back to reinforce the play's abundant poisonous-spider imagery.

 

But if you have an actor who is already outside the norm, the tendency is to shy away from anything that suggests that his condition is abnormal.

 

Generally, actors revel in piling on tics and grotesqueries to make you see why dogs bark at Richard when he simply passes by. Here, every effort is made to treat Richard as if nothing were amiss at all.

 

This Richard does not even have a hump. Neither does he hunch over, the way a man who makes reference to his own "deformity" would.

 

In fact Dinklage is a good-looking, sexy man. The seduction scenes ought to be chilling because they suggest a dark creature preying on an innocent. Here, however, they seem quite conventional, which considerably reduces their tension and their sick fascination.

 

More important, Dinklage conveys very little of Richard's twisted spirit. Until shortly before the end, he plays Richard as if he were merely a tough executive, not an angry, bitter soul.

 

The production, directed by Peter DuBois, is fairly colorless. It begins on a foolish note with Czech composer Smetana's patriotic symphonic poem "The Moldau" blaring over the speakers. What does this have to do with anything?

 

After some mimed cavorting, suggesting the dissolute court for which Richard feels such contempt, we hear Dinklage's heavily amplified voice delivering the opening lines well before we see him. All this distracts from the speech's power....

 

 

As usual, the Public is trading on star power. Had Dinklage played, say, the melancholy Jaques in "As You Like It," his height might have accentuated the character.

 

Here, because the production tries so hard to ignore his difference, his size diminishes the potential of the play.