Q&A with Nicolas Pérez Costa Ahead of Richard III at The Cockpit Theatre

Richard III has been performed countless times over the centuries. What made you want to tell this story now?

The need to stage Richard III emerged first from a deeply personal necessity rather than from a reflection on current events. The fact that the play speaks so directly to our present has been, in some ways, a fortunate coincidence. When I was very young, someone told me that characters are not chosen by actors or directors; rather, they choose us. That idea has stayed with me ever since. I believe characters arrive because something needs to be represented, because something needs to be said. Throughout the entire creative process, I continue to ask myself why Richard came to me precisely now. I try to answer that question for myself, for those accompanying me in the process and, ultimately, for the audience.

What was your first encounter with Richard III, and what drew you to the character?

I believe my first encounter with Richard III was connected above all to an artistic ambition. When I was twenty-four or twenty-five, I constantly asked myself what kind of actor I wanted to become and what stories I wanted to tell. I knew that I did not want to make theatre that left either me or the audience indifferent. In that context, a question emerged: would I ever be capable of playing Richard III? What ultimately fascinated me was the contradiction within the character: his intelligence, his humour, his power of seduction. That extraordinary combination of monster and victim that makes it impossible to stop watching him or trying to understand him. I believe what attracts me most about Richard is precisely that mystery: the feeling that we never fully know who he really is, what he truly wants or why he does what he does.

Richard is often described as Shakespeare's greatest villain. Do you see him as a villain?

To refuse to see Richard as a villain would, I think, be an act of irresponsibility towards his victims. But trying to understand the monster is something entirely different. Monsters are not born as monsters, monsters are constructed. More often, they are the result of abandonment, social resentment, lack of empathy, inequality of opportunity, excessive ambition and selfishness. The question that interests me is not whether Richard is a monster, but whether any of us could become one. If I possessed real power over others, would I be capable of not becoming Richard? Am I good because I truly am, or simply because I have not had the opportunity to be bad? I believe that all of us carry darkness within us. The real challenge lies in keeping it under control and remaining on the side of the common good rather than solely pursuing individual interests.

This production places the audience inside a brutal, decaying world. What kind of experience did you want audiences to have?

I am increasingly interested in a theatre in which the spectator does not simply observe the actor or the character, but has the opportunity to look at the world alongside them. I am interested in intimate theatre, where immersion ultimately becomes the spectator’s own decision. Because I believe that, regardless of physical proximity, every person decides how deeply they wish to involve themselves in the experience. We live in a very particular historical moment. Although theatre is a millennia-old institution, we have never before been so permanently exposed to fiction. We consume stories constantly and live surrounded by narratives. For that reason, I believe that bringing the audience physically closer, allowing them to perceive us, smell us, hear our breathing or feel the brush of a cloak against their leg, is a way of returning theatre to its original value. Theatre remains a living event: a communion of bodies, a human encounter that transcends the increasingly virtual world in which we live.

You're both directing the production and playing Richard. How challenging is it to do both at the same time?

It is probably the closest experience to a certain artistic bipolarity or schizophrenia that I have ever experienced. Throughout much of the process, I cannot fully involve myself as an actor because I need to remain outside the scene, observing, suggesting and accompanying the other performers towards what I imagine to be the best version of their work. Paradoxically, however, the experience becomes complete when I step on stage as Richard. There is something profoundly theatrical in the fact that Richard is, in many ways, the great director of Shakespeare’s play. He manipulates, induces, orchestrates events and moves other characters according to his own interests. In that sense, I find a strange and fascinating relationship between Richard and my own profession as a theatre director. Both work, in very different ways, through the manipulation of bodies, desires and actions. Perhaps that is why directing and performing Richard III is so exhausting, but also so extraordinarily stimulating.

RICHARD III will open at London's Cockpit Theatre from Wednesday 8th to Saturday 11th July.

For more information visit: https://www.thecockpit.org.uk/show/richard_III