Force of Evil

By Richard Zoglin

Like many TV actors with aspirations to bigger things, Richard Thomas has always struggled to outgrow his own success. As John-Boy on The Waltons, he was the embodiment of youthful, all-American idealism. He has shown himself since to be a versatile and adventurous stage actor, in roles ranging from Konstantin in The Seagull to Hamlet. Nothing, however, would seem further outside Thomas' metier than Richard III, Shakespeare's deformed, monstrously evil monarch. Yet in Mark Lamos' vigorous new production at the Hartford Stage, Thomas pulls off a remarkable transformation.

"I am determined to prove a villain," Richard declares in his opening speech and he spends the next three hours proving it tenfold: betraying friends, murdering children, even seducing the widow of one of his victims. Richard has more lines than any other Shakespearean character except Hamlet, yet he changes scarcely a jot. Avoiding any psychological revisionism, Thomas gives us the hump, the limp and the unredeemed evil. Physically and vocally, he lacks grandeur. But with his spiky hair and pasty-faced sneer, he's deliciously twisted -- a street punk on a power jag.

Mark Lamos, who previously directed Thomas in Hamlet and Peer Gynt, has complemented him with a stark, unfussy production. Bare light bulbs, strobe effects and huge shadows projected onto the rear wall contribute to the doomy, noirish atmosphere. The action never flags, and among the good supporting cast, John Michael Higgins stands out as the smooth henchman-turned-foe Buckingham. Oddly, only Richard's famous last hurrah -- "My kingdom for a horse!" -- seems a letdown. With all the showy swordplay that precedes it, this fellow seems to be doing just fine on foot.