Richard III Revival 2017

Dragging his clubfoot and hunchback across a clay- and glitter-caked stage, Shakespeare's most wretched villain weaponizes his ugliness against a kingdom ravaged by its own elite infighting. In this prescient production, German director Thomas Ostermeier (An Enemy of the People, 2013 Next Wave) laces iambic pentameter with relentless drumming, bringing his trademark pop-cultural canniness to bear. Cult Shakespearean actor Lars Eidinger is cast as a kind of rock-star despot, growling his soliloquies into a microphone that swings overhead like the Sword of Damocles, as he alternately seduces and bombasts his nation into chaos.