Richard III.

In the organizer's words:

Richard III - by William Shakespeare - Premiere on September 2, 2023 - Schauspielhaus, Großes Haus - Play

With Richard, Duke of Gloucester, a nascent tyrant enters the stage, who already announces in the first scene that he has been disadvantaged by nature: hunchbacked, limping, ugly born, he now wants to set out to seize power and ruin the world. On the battlefields of the Wars of the Roses, which flared up after the death of Henry V, Richard has served his family well. Now his brother Edward is king. But the end of the war does not bring Richard peace; his hatred for the world of the well-born, to which he will never belong, runs too deep.

There are two things that are important in life: One is love, the other is power. Richard can forget about love anyway, he thinks, with his exterior. Now it's about power. About pure power, which also creates joy and pleasure. Richard carries through this thought with a consequence that normal mortals are not able to comprehend. This is the style of absolute domination. Not: I want to destroy everyone. But: I must destroy all who can become dangerous to me - because self-assertion is the only thing left to me.

Men and women fall for Richard by the dozen, because they love his flattery, yes! But also because they succumb to the sheer assertion of his power and purpose. This is the fascination of the ugly, which is combined with the fascination of evil in a narrowing of aesthetic and moral categories. One can be fascinated by such figures.

"Richard III" is one of Shakespeare's earliest dramas, first performed around 1593, it outlines the rise and fall of the shapeless king. Director Evgeny Titov, who most recently staged "Macbeth" at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus, will stage the material with André Kaczmarczyk in the title role. It is the second part of a Shakespeare trilogy, to which another tyrant drama will be added.