Richard III

“The Life and Death of King Richard III” is the last of four plays by William Shakespeare about English history, the longest after Hamlet. The protagonist, Richard III Duke of Gloucester, is a ruthless and ambitious man, willing to do anything to climb the line of succession and obtain the crown. Plotting in the shadows, he manages to eliminate all obstacles and relatives that would prevent him from ascending to the throne or that would question his sovereignty, but in doing so, he loses popularity and drives Richmond's army, led by Henry Tudor, to rebel. The battle ends with the death of Richard III and the ascent to the throne of Henry VII of England, also bringing an end to the Wars of the Roses.

In Shakespeare's play, Richard III is depicted as a deformed, hunchbacked, and limping man, whose appearance readily reveals his wickedness. However, director Antonio Latella does not share the same vision. He reinterprets evil as life, nature, and divinity, does not attribute it a specific and “recognizable” form, and does not justify it with physical deformities. Instead, he represents evil as a blinding, opulent, and deceptive beauty, made of seduction and dangerous relationships. Richard III, played by Vinicio Marchioni, and the various characters move within a kind of Garden of Eden. And for Latella, the battle of his protagonist is no longer just for the crown, but also for the submission of the feminine, when it is precisely the feminine that will deliver checkmate to him.