Bloody bloody King Richard

On Friday, I went to see the Shakespeare Theater Company's production of Richard III, which was An Experience. I went in knowing that it was going to be very bloody – if I hadn't picked this up in advance from the reviews, the theater also helpfully informed us on our way in by decorating the lobby/bar area with Halloween-store blood splatters and offering a "Bloody Richard" specialty cocktail – and from the couple of promotional photos I'd seen online, I was kind of expecting, like. A non-campy Repo! The Genetic Opera vibe.

...actually, I was pretty much right about that, aesthetically, but oh boy. Whoever designed this show was a genius, and specifically an evil genius, because it was the creepiest thing I have ever seen. They showed all of the deaths on-stage, in increasingly, creatively awful ways that typically involved being strapped down and lots of struggling and twitching and screaming, and the set was this stark, eerie, concrete-walled industrial murder basement with the walls of drawers they have in a morgue. These were put to use when Richard dreamed of the ghosts of all the people he'd had killed in his climb to the throne: they literally came out of the walls, covered in blood and/or ghastly make-up. Which was, as a staging decision, objectively super cool, but also gave me actual nightmares.

( Cut for length, and also general creepiness )