The Richard III that Bieito sculpts with hammer blows

Tall, agile, well-built, attractive, furious, violent, histrionic, clownish. And without a hump. This is Shakespeare's Richard III as imagined by Calixto Bieito, which has been at the Grec Festival in a 2025 production by Buenos Aires' Teatro San Martín, starring actor Joaquín Furriel, whom Calixto Bieito had already directed in 2010 in a version of "Life is a dream of Calderón de la Barca.

A Richard III more farce than tragedy who shouts, strikes, runs, jumps, and even walks through the audience inviting spectators to dip their finger in the poisoned cake with which he murders the Duke of Buckingham. And more than one does. This Richard III wants power. He wants the kingdom, but above all he wants to be seen as a perverse jester who demands attention, displaying his cynicism in a profile that mirrors the killer clown. He is the center of a story told in a series of dramatic effects.

Bieito recovers the story of one of Shakespeare's great villains based on the discovery, a few years ago, of what could be his remains in a municipal car park where the Franciscan convent had been. And so the play begins with scientists and their investigation in front of a metal door. Scientists who poke their heads out from time to time with scientific explanations that deny his deformity, in scenes superimposed on the original story without dramatic justification.

It is the same Bieito from that fabulous King Lear with Josep Maria Pou. Bieito of the outbursts and anachronisms. Bieito of the poetics of violence, who here faces problems with a stage design that does not suit the Grec Theatre, problems with lighting, and I would say problems in portraying the obscenity of power. Furriel, one of the most famous actors in Argentina, has made the character his own to the point of almost nullifying the rest of the characters, who have become mere servants of his presence and his words. Furriel excels, but the play lacks nuance and has too many hammer blows.