‘Richard III’: Dark comedy dominates the tragedy in Chicago Shakes’ new take

“England hath long been mad, and scarr’d herself.”

This line, from late in “Richard III,” defines the world of this bold, visually striking, jarringly comic, icily Gothic production at Chicago Shakespeare.

Director Edward Hall, the theater’s new leader, introduces us into the madhouse — take it literally — even before the start. As you take your seat, inhabitants of an otherworldly asylum stare forward from the stage. Whether inmates or orderlies, they look like zombies, dressed in white button-down smocks and covered with masks that resemble neither the COVID-protection nor the dramatic smiley/frowny, comedy/tragedy kind. More like straitjackets for the face, these masks evoke skulls, and one figure, center stage, holds up two of those. Small skulls, not adult-sized. If you know the story, you may recognize the foreshadowing.

When the play proper starts, at the center of this off-kilter world we find Richard of Gloucester — not yet with the kingly title as that’s the story — sitting on the ground. Played by Katy Sullivan, a Paralympian double amputee, this Richard has a special relationship with the floor. Without prosthetic legs, or the wheelchair Sullivan climbs all over with sometimes sudden scurrying movements, he has near intimate knowledge of the ground, what Shakespeare’s other King Richard — the Second — a century earlier in historical terms (but later in the chronology of the plays’ writing) called, “This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”

Hall has covered the 100-year history — in similarly macabre fashion — between these two Richards previously with his much-heralded “Rose Rage,” a conflation of Shakespeare’s three early Henry VI plays produced at Chicago Shakes in 2003. This is, if you will, the sequel, the earliest of Shakespeare’s much-produced works, and considered both history and, as officially subtitled, tragedy.

And, in Hall’s take, black comedy.

Sure, there’s always been humor here, as Richard switches instantly, and frequently, between his saint-like shenanigans and his honest, direct-to-audience admissions of his villainy. It’s Richard’s own sense of this humorous juxtaposition that makes him so unavoidably appealing even as he schemes and murders. But this production takes it to a different level, and then further.

The show becomes a parade of increasingly violent murders or their after-effect. Set designer Michael Pavelka cleverly uses hospital screens, which the chorus quickly and constantly reconfigures, and which become excellent covers for stage violence and surfaces for blood splatters. Dead bodies in garbage bags, and in one case a live one, get swiftly switched with stuff-filled ones that henchmen then pummel.

Hall throws in myriad styles. We’ve got supernatural horror and Keaton-esque slapstick, classic revenge tragedy, and a meta-theatricality that immediately brings to mind “Marat/Sade,” a famous ’60s play where inmates of an asylum put on a historical drama. We’ve got drag (I’m not referring to Sullivan as Richard), electric guitar, and puppets (who hump the floor and appear in a jar). With the clear influence of a Brechtian emotional estrangement effect, combined with Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, this is an ideal performance for theatrical theorists.

Extremely imaginative, filled with brilliant ideas, with ravishingly noirish lighting from Marcus Doshi, the production is also — at least while watching it — too much. The intense bombardment of stimuli leaves behind some essentials. Shakespeare’s intricate plot gets lost. The supporting players mostly come off as interchangeable.

Set at a rapid pace and mostly the same volume (i.e., high), there’s a sameness and self-consciousness to the show that makes it feel overlong, undermining appreciation of the creativity. The dark comedy becomes dominant, enveloping everything around it with emotional chilliness, and yet the show isn’t consistently funny or cringy enough.

That said, some of the images and ideas remain with me.

Sullivan — a hugely likable performer getting a deserved spotlight playing the best disabled character ever written — delivers a performance that’s both compelling and sometimes, especially in the first act, monotone. Sullivan doesn’t yet have the vocal dexterity to fully express variations in intensity. But her physicality is extraordinary, adding deep layers here, and she becomes fascinating to watch when Richard starts questioning himself in the second act. Her bouts with conscience draw us in completely.

And those moments are matched in revelation by one of the most famous ones, when Richard, having been knocked off his steed during the final battle, screams the memorable line: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!”

He crawls at this point, returning us to the beginning. Sullivan’s Richard now is a powerful figure who, injured and abandoned, could probably still overcome anyone if only he had his horse. Or his legs.