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For years, the Globe has pushed for a theatre that champions equity, diversity, justice, and inclusion. With groundbreaking decisions to diversify gender and race when casting their productions, the theatre has been at the forefront of change. Yet, in Elle While’s summer 2024 production of Richard III, their diverse casting sparked controversy, with accusations of marginalising the disabled community.
Michelle Terry’s casting as Richard III sparked a fierce debate in the world of theatre. As an able-bodied actor, Terry’s portrayal of one of history’s most iconic disabled figures has divided audiences and critics alike. In an era increasingly attuned to the importance of accurate representation, Terry’s casting has prompted a closer examination of whether the role should be reserved for disabled actors or if it’s simply another opportunity for theatre to challenge preconceived notions about disability.
Richard III has long been considered an iconic disabled figure in English history. For many years, the extent of his disability was widely debated, but the discovery of his skeleton in 2012 proved that he had scoliosis. Whilst confirming his disability, reconstructions of his spine from CT scans prove that his physical disfigurement would have been slight, potentially resulting in a shorter-than-usual torso and a right shoulder that was a little higher than the left – the latter easily concealed by his armour. Descriptions of Richard having a hunched-back or withered arms are entirely false, leaving one to wonder whether such accusations have been subject to exaggeration to exacerbate Richard’s reputation as a loathsome villain.
The Disabled Artists Alliance published an open letter, signed by more than 100 people, calling for an “immediate recast” of Richard, claiming that this iconic role “belongs to us.” The letter argues that, through Richard, Shakespeare “documents the socialised effect of an attitudinally disabling society,” arguing that it is this experience of maltreatment that embitters Richard and causes him to become so tyrannical. Further to this, the Alliance states that “his disabled identity is imbued and integral to all corners of the script,” referencing Richard’s claims that he is “Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time into this breathing world, scarce half made up.”
In a statement published by The Globe, Terry apologised for “any pain or harm that has been caused by the decision for [her] to play Richard III.” She acknowledged that Richard III is a renowned disabled figure and that she understood how her casting was perceived to be “a missed opportunity for a disabled artist to play a disabled character on a major UK stage, but it will come around again.” There is considerable potential in casting an actor with a disability to play Richard, as their lived experience can shape the audience’s understanding of how the prejudice he faces on account of his disability contributes to the creation of a villain. Indeed, acting is an opportunity to portray many lived experiences, but does that mean it should be limited to such?
Disability is not the only over-arching theme of this historical play; it is richly entrenched with tyranny, political despotism, and misogyny – all things captured by While’s Richard III. In Terry’s statement, she claims that by removing Richard’s disability, she was allowed to experiment with these themes, and “right now, [the Globe] feels that this is something important to explore.” Her portrayal of Richard nods heavily towards Donald Trump, who was, at the time of production, campaigning for the US presidential election. With her Trump-esque gesticulations, unkempt mop of blonde hair, and wanton misogyny, Terry created a recognisably distasteful man at the centre of all this political despotism.
Notably, in years before Terry’s casting, many able-bodied men have performed the role of Richard, with little-to-no backlash on account of their ableism. Ralph Fiennes, Kenneth Branagh, and Benedict Cumberbatch have all been acclaimed for their performances of Richard III. In an interview, Terry claimed that “the misogyny has far outweighed the disability discourse”, noting the irony of the director’s attempt to highlight misogyny with this production.
Where other adaptations, such as the cinematic recreations of Ian Fleming’s James Bond, have stripped their narrative of racism and misogyny to become more palatable to modern audiences, disability has remained an essential aspect of their villains. The BBC’s dramatisation of Shakespeare’s historical plays, The Hollow Crown, went so far as to distastefully disfigure Cumberbatch’s body in an over-the-top attempt to render the character of Richard III repulsive. Might it not be considered refreshing that Elle While’s Richard III has managed to remove the physical disfigurement of an abhorred man and still make him successfully distasteful? Terry, in her statement, asks, “Does the conflation of evil with disability in the play offer us an opportunity to expose bias, or does it compound it?”
The illiteracy surrounding ableism and disability justice remains prevalent some 400 years later. Left unchecked, negative biases continue to shape daily interactions, fostering inequality and injustice in our society. The conflation of evil with disability in modern media is not a useful one – While’s decision to cast an able-bodied actor as Richard can be viewed as an act of alliance towards the disabled community, misconstrued though it may have been.
Edited by Zhanserik Temirtashev
Image: Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London, Neil Howard, 2016 // CC BY-NC 2.0
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