Review Roundup: Kevin Spacey Leads Bridge Project Production of RICHARD III

The Bridge Project is a unique three-year series of co-productions by BAM, The Old Vic, and Neal Street, devoted to producing large-scale, classical theater for international audiences. The final season of The Bridge Project featuring Kevin Spacey, Artistic Director of The Old Vic, in the title role of Richard III, opened at The Old Vic in London on June 29, 2011 and began performances at BAM on January 10, 2012 with an official opening tonight. The Bridge Project is directed by Academy Award-winner Sam Mendes with whom Kevin Spacey worked on the award-winning film American Beauty.

Since opening at the Old Vic las summer, the production has subsequently toured Athens; Hong Kong; Aviles, Spain; Istanbul; Naples; San Francisco; Beijing; Singapore; Sydney; and Doha.

Led by Kevin Spacey in the role of Richard III, the company features a British/American cast that includes Maureen Anderman as the Duchess of York; Haydn Gwynne as Queen Elizabeth; Chuk Iwuji as Duke of Buckingham; Gemma Jones as Queen Margaret; and Chandler Williams as George, Duke of Clarence. Find out what the critics thought of the production here!

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: In a happy convergence of an actor and a role Mr. Spacey makes acting up a devastating storm both the form and content of his part in “Richard III,” which has been staged (none too subtly) by the Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes...[Spacey's performance] is consistent in its excesses, shaped by a sustained point of view. I can’t say the same of this production, which is the final offering from Mr. Mendes’s three-year-old Bridge Project, which mixes British and American actors.

Mark Kennedy, Associated Press: Spacey's Richard is overblown and cartoonish and yet impossible to stop watching. He is part Groucho Marx and part Moammar Gadhafi — a sarcastic, snarling tornado of resentment whose reign of terror somehow is funny. Not often does Richard's line, "I wish the bastards dead," get laughs. Projections before each scene give the audience the name of the main character in it, helping immensely. But there is no fear of losing track of Spacey's Richard. He's to die for.

Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly: In director Sam Mendes' uneven modern-dress revival of Richard III, [Spacey] plays a kind of über-Spacey. It's an old-fashioned star turn with undeniable showmanship. Subtlety, however, is in short supply. By playing the role so broadly, Spacey denies Richard the full weight of tragedy. (Try to imagine two-faced Edmund as the lead of King Lear.) It can be fun to watch a villain get his comeuppance, of course, but it's hard to feel much when this one does. (Grade: B-)

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter: Spacey takes great advantage of the monologue-heavy text to foster winking complicity with the audience. That certainly keeps this Richard III absorbing – even through an exhausting 2-hour first act. (All told, it clocks in at just under 3½ hours.) But it makes the production less effective as a multi-character history play than a single-subject portrait of power-mad amorality. Bottom Line: Kevin Spacey makes a lip-smacking smorgasbord of Shakespeare’s “poisonous bunch-backed toad” in Sam Mendes’ star-vehicle production.

Jeremy Gerard, Bloomberg: The production reunites Spacey and his “American Beauty” director Sam Mendes. Together they recycle every cliche in the contemporary Shakespeare arsenal. Minimalist sets? Check. Monochrome costumes with leather and hardware accents? Check. Tedious parallels to Hitler and Mussolini? Check. Grainy newsreel footage projected above the action? Of course. To that dreary list, they’ve added dashes of Neil Simon and Groucho Marx.

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: Mendes and his leading man boldly and cannily revel in the melodrama of the Duke of Gloucester's wild and bloody ride to the throne. The violence itself isn't exceptionally graphic; while there's some artful gore, several beheadings are indicated by hands simply passing over faces as they fade into darkness. This Richard III derives more of its horror, and its humor, from the machinations of its physically malformed, psychologically twisted central character.

Matt Windman, amNY: As Richard, Spacey sports a prosthetic hump and walks with a cane and mechanized leg brace to overcome a twisted limp. Yet even without the excessive physical displays, he gives an absolutely tireless performance that is loud, larger than life, gleefully evil, impatient and genuinely psychotic...Mendes does clarify the bulk of the drama by framing it in terms of Richard's constant pursuit of his goal.

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