“Richard III”, written by “Mohammad Charmshir”, directed by “Atila Pesiani”

The most important sign is Richard, the Duke of Gloucester’s opening monologue, which is a long soliloquy in the first scene of drama. Shakespeare describes his goals of the five-act drama in this soliloquy, and makes it clear for the audience. Now, we know where the character of Richard stands and why he resorts to such ignominious acts. It’s interesting as we read the fourth scenes of the Act 4:
“DUCHESS OF YORK     Why should calamity be full of words?
QUEEEN ELIZABETH    Windy attorneys to their client woes.
                Airy succeeders of intestate joys,
                Poor breathing orators of miseries!
                Let them have scope: though
                Help not all, yet do they ease the heart.
DUCHESS OF YORK        If so, then be not tongue-tied: go with me.
                And in the breath of bitter words let’s smother
                My damned son, which thy two sweet sons
smother’d.”
       
In this dialogue, Shakespeare has considered an in-between role for words. On one hand, he has not given a superior status to it. On the other hand, he benefits from words to clarify goals of the character. The drama, in its first words, relates behavior of the character to a historical event. Shakespeare also makes us understand in the opening that we are facing a drama, which is cluttered with interpretations.
Therefore, although incidents of the drama are not a few, Shakespeare’s interpretations, which have taken the form of dialogues among different characters, cast its shadow over a broad section of the drama. Indeed, such kind of writing for Shakespeare of neo-classic period is not a flaw and the noted writer has possibly managed to coin thousands of new words for English language through such stratagem. Expansions of signs in form of words in a drama could create misinterpretations in translation which needs extensive discussions in another article.
These days, Pesiani presents a different adaptation of Shakespeare’s drama by Charmshir and or even a [different account] of a historical event, referred by Shakespeare in the drama. This is an outstanding adaptation, which could be reviewed in several aspects. Primarily, Shakespeare’s word-oriented approach is replaced by visual signs. What is seen in the performance is the expansion of some accumulated Shakespearean signs. These signs are not ignored but are downplayed by Shakespeare because of his orientation toward words. Pesiani and Charmshir do not try to make everything happen on stage and information and interpretations draw to an end on the set. On the contrary, the performance would continue for a long time in imagination of the audience. Therefore, the storytelling is replaced by space-making and interpretations are made not on the set but on the mind of audience. Therefore, storytelling has given room to space making and interpretations are made not on the set but by audience.   
What is explained later is that how Charmshir and Pesiani have tried to use visual signs and change words to action to convey the mental violence of text (mixture of performance and drama as the final product) to the imagination of audience.   
“Richard III” begins with a nightmare. The dead are dispersed on the set. The citizens –later, these characters will play the role of main characters of drama- move with the dead. The picture is drawn by Pesiani of accompaniment of the dead and alive is metaphorical. The people, who are dead by plague –later is read as violence of Buckingham and Richard- are victims to one goal. Violence and power-mongering have swept across them like plague. Such metaphoric approach and co-presence of meaning in Richard III begins with this pattern. Movement of people is one of the signs being expanded. Such expansion of people in a way that each one changes into another aspect of the other could be considered from different approaches. First of all, Richard III is a hunchback according to drama. The hunch Richard is carrying on his back is a symbol of his evil temperament. It is a symbol was not referred to by Shakespeare in a few cases. But in the adaptation of Charmshir and Pesiani, this hunch features the shape of several characters, who are constantly accompanying Richard. One is blind, the other is curved and even Buckingham who is the brain of the group has a senile and haggard appearance and of course, Richard doesn’t speak.
Richard addresses Buckingham in the second scene of Act 2 like this:
“My other self, my counsel’s consistory        
My oracle, my prophet! My dear cousin,    
I, like a child, will go by thy direction…”
Charmshir, in his characterization, expands these sentences to almost turn Buckingham into main character of the story. While Richard and Buckingham plot together to ascend to throne in Shakespear’s drama, Richard is not aware of Buckingham’s conspiracy in this adaptation. The bewildered Richard crowns among the people here. Buckingham is expanded in Charmshir’s adaptation and Pesiani’s performance. Meanwhile, such changes, which are insisted on, especially in the opening of “Richard III”, indicate his interest in surrealism. His surrealism stresses on making the atmosphere more horrendous. In such a surreal and nightmarish space, things and characters take place of one another. On the other hand, to make such space, a webcam is put in the auditorium to reflect images of the set on a screen located above the audience and I think this is one of the best uses of virtual picture in theater in recent years. Webcam helps real images being showed in a slower pace. So the real time is prolonged on its virtual reflection on the screen above the audience. Such reflection creates a psychologically secondary time for the audience. It is a nightmarish time which intensifies the dreadful atmosphere of the set and turning them into mentally horrendous patterns. Here, the lengthy conversations and literal interpretations of Shakespeare are played down and changed into images.   
Other visual signs made by Pesiani are those focused on plays which erode the space between childhood and adolescence. In a chapter of the play, Richard draws sketches on the floor and some individuals get involved in a war with some toys. Such childish war shows not only childhood and ignorance but also the violence institutionalized in the spirit of the characters.
Richard deceitfully makes them play while strengthens the sense of violence in them and conveys it to the audience. Such approach intensifies the nightmarish sense of the performance. In another mise en scene, people are seen standing against one another to rally forces. The border is eroded here, too and the violent adult world stands against that of the childhood. A simple game is arranged whose consequence is violence and blood.  
The emphasis is constantly laid on the palace in the original “Richard III”. Apogee and grandeur stand against humility of Richard. In Pesiani’s drama, there is no sign of the splendor of palace. The palace is separated from the society through some descending steps. This is a society which has murderer and graveyard on one end and garbage yard on the other end and the space Pesiani pictures it as palace is beneath all these. The men who are killed in this palace turn into the pigeons and fly.  
Richard is among the people more than courtiers here. Buckingham strengthens this connection more. When the social signs are bolstered, the writer and director enter another element, which is abuse of narcotic. The drugs prove more than anything the violence of Buckingham during the performance. On the other hand it shows how he makes Richard addicted to violence and power. It seems what Buckingham is doing penetrates into the soul of Richard through this opening. White drugs have dark nature per se. It’s like a huge flag Richard has in his hand in the opening scene. The huge dimensions of the flag and a hunchback who has the end of the flag in hand are also deconstructed like this. These are signs of hypocrite and deceitful soul of Richard, which penetrates into the spirit of Buckingham in another way. To remember in the beginning how Buckingham hugs people and then kills them. Such hugging and murderer are the accumulated signs, too.      
In the charmshir/Pesiani reading of the drama, Richard is being murdered by his alter ego. The death of Buckingham is the death of Richard and the writer and the director are intentionally picturing their own interpretation of the story. This is what not emphasized by Shakespeare in his drama. Charmshir and Pesiani have managed to create their own narratives in a proper way. Indeed, we are not facing evident typical elements of narratives and their review needs separate debates.