Last modified: Thursday, January 31, 2008 5:55 PM EST THEATER REVIEW: Trinity's 'Richard III' a bloody shame BY JAMES A. MEROLLA / STAFF THEATER WRITER Trinity Rep opened a very bloody, indelicate, warp-speed version of "Richard III" this week, with the body count mounting so quickly that somewhere Sly Stallone's Rambo must be weeping. It's not that director Kevin Moriarty has added new victims to the rage and wrath of Shakespeare's most villainous king. It's just that by cutting out all the peripheral scenes and characters in a move designed to push the action forward and cut more than an hour out of the nearly four-hour tragedy, the slashing mounts up so quickly the audience hasn't time to digest one slaying when another victim bites the dust. I swear, when the show was over half the ushers were done in. Trinity Rep almost always gets Shakespeare right. Their "Hamlet" last season garnered universal raves and was an award-winner and deservedly so. Brian McEleney directed that one. Here, he stars as Richard and, while McEleney is good in every role, he doesn't quite master this one. Moriarty doesn't help him by having Richard's physical "deformities" caused by war wounds and not, as Shakespeare had intended, a hunchback, a club foot and paralysis in one hand. Moriarty's removal of the character of Margaret and all the curses and visitations and prophecies from the production to speed up all the killing, also removes the pre-ordained element of Richard's inevitable blood-thirsty reign in favor of mere ambition, a la Hitler or Stalin (Moriarty's own comparisons). But removing the warts removes the warrior. The point is that Richard becomes malevolent partly because, as he says, "Since I cannot prove a lover...I am determined to prove a villain." It's his original ugliness that adds to his malevolence and his duplicity (the dark side of the ugly girl having a REALLY good personality). The uglier he is, the uglier he becomes; and the corollary - the uglier he becomes, the uglier he is. That symbolic element is completely missing in this version as McEleney, not an unattractive man, carries the carriage of a Gielgud, save for a limp. Alas, NONE of Trinity's actors carry the diction of a Gielgud, as good as they are; they are simply not British and the original tone of the intentions of this oral language suffers as a result. Performed on a broken, slanted set of jutting pipes and cracked concrete resembling a crashed airplane with its broken wing and fuselage (kudos to set designer Michael McGarty), Moriarty has added a 15-minute prologue, taken from previous history plays by Shakespeare, and written in his style (and, quite nicely, too), a sort of pseudo-Shakespeare that tells a 21st century audience just who is bloody who. As Moriarty said to someone on opening night, "There is a lot going on. There is so much history going on and it's hard to follow." When McEleney finally says the REAL opening line of the play, "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York" - arguably, the most famous opening line in ALL of Shakespeare - it is said as a toast at a party commemorating the coronation of his brother, and NOT as a stewing soliloquy of a misshapen monster, plotting his plots. That plotting tone comes every time Richard snaps his fingers, letting the audience in, as Shakespeare intended, on his murderous schemes, making all of us unwitting accomplices. When Richard snaps, the warm lighting goes cold, like him. He snaps about 75 times all night before he actually, well, snaps. It gets a little annoying. There is little qualm with the overall acting here. It's neither memorable or horrible. The troupe - Fred Sullivan Jr., Angela Brazil, Phyllis Kay, Mauro Hantmann, Barbara Meek and some good guest actors like Johnny Lee Davenport and a slew of consortium students - all do their best. And child actor Teddy McNulty, as one of two child princes viciously removed by Richard in his relentless quest to be king, brought gasps from the audience with his rag doll manner after having his throat slashed, proving that good acting doesn't always involve speaking. I particularly liked Stephen Berenson's gentle Clarence, another brother Richard does in. I think the entire play would have been better served with the dwarfish Berenson, small and mealy, clomping around with that hump in the lead role, and McEleney directing. As it is, we cannot catch our breath in between those Rambo-style slashings, and stabbings, and shootings, nor can Richard himself. Blood-spattered body piled one upon the other with no denouement for thought and reflection, no hump to grow, or foot, or quiet time, to drag. As Richard says, when he knows the jig is almost up and his unbearably horrible acts have ultimate consequences, "I am myself. Alone." Even he noticed those missing ushers. "Richard III" runs through March 2 at Trinity Repertory Theatre, 2 Washington St., Providence. Go to www.trinityrep.com for ticket information or call 401-351-4242.