Richard III invades Courthouse lawn

Montana Shakespeare in the Parks (MSIP) couldn't have picked a nicer time to perform Richard III, a play that MSIP just added for the 2016 season. The play was held last Thursday on the south lawn of the City's Courthouse with over a hundred viewers.

Among the viewers was Kelsey Molloy who has read a few Shakespeare plays but was unfamiliar with Richard III.

"I had to read them in high school and watch the plays then," Molloy said. "But I didn't learn to appre-ciate it until I came to their play last year."

Molloy has since then noticed that Shakespeare is kind of good.

"Kind of good is an understatement," she said. "Both plays were really excellent."

Molloy was pleased with the message of the play and that fact that it was historical.

"It was a historical play and it had an underlying level about the power of politics and words," Molloy said.

The play was about fifteenth century Richard of Gloucester, who lied, cheated and killed to earn a spot on England's throne. Richard was a villain, who many in the crowd had mixed emotions about, not knowing the outcome of the play.

Though it was hard to tell, the story had a couple of heroes including Queen Elizabeth Woodville.

Sasha Kostyrko a Chicago based student from California, played Elizabeth who was the queen consort of Edward.

"I am the king's wife who nobody likes and Richard slowly but surely kills everyone in my family," Kostyrko said. "My brother and my sons and then he tries to marry my daughter."

Though she admitted England's history is complex due to the amount of royalty with similar names, she loves Shakespeare's historical plays more than any other play.

"Histories are so rich in drama and a lot of it is real," Kostyrko said.

She went on to say that Richard III was the last of Shakespeare's tetralogy or the fourth play in a four part series.

The villain of the play was portrayed by Sam Pearson.

"That's the interesting thing about the character," Pearson said. "He literally said in the first line, I am going to be the villain."

Pearson admitted playing the part was meant to present viewers with a struggle.

"You want to kind of root for the guy," Pearson said. "And in some way you kind of want to like the villain, the first true anti-hero."

How sinister was Richard? He was sinister enough to sentence many, including children and his own wife to death as king.

Ultimately Richard did meet his end at the Battle of Bosworth Field to the sword of Henry VII.

According to Pearson, having MSIP as a full team job is a dream come true.

"This job is the actor's dream job," Pearson said. "I travel around the beautiful state of Montana. It's beautiful out here."

The MSIP job is an everyday job, where the actors and actresses go from town to town, setting up a massive stage, acting and tearing the stage down.

Before performing in Malta, the group performed in Conrad. The day after Malta, the crew performed in Wolf Point. Since the Malta performance MSIP has been to Beach, N.D., Ekalaka, and Miles City. To-day the group will perform in Glendive.