SOURCE: Mullan, John. “Privilege of Gender.” Times Literary Supplement (16 June 1995): 22.

In the following review, Mullen commends Deborah Warner's 1995 Cottesloe Theatre production of Richard II, which, the critic contends, emphasized the ritualistic ceremony of Shakespeare's drama. In addition, Mullan praises Fiona Shaw's Richard as “always interesting” and “sometimes brilliant.”

Most of the publicity for this production has been stirred by the casting of Fiona Shaw in the title role. Getting its retaliation in first against those who might object, the programme brandishes some “quotes” chosen to alert us to the appropriateness of a woman acting as king. Yet despite its assurances that nineteenth-century theatre-goers thought nothing of a woman playing Hamlet or Iago, and its sternness about “the modern sense of this cross-dressed portrayal as a stunt or trick”, Deborah Warner's production relies on our sense of oddness of the choice. The director has called Richard “feminine”, and there...