Fair Shake Trinity’s summery take on Richard III BY BILL RODRIGUEZ

A farce, a farce, his kingdom for a farce! Richard III gets such delicious glee from his evil machinations in this production of Richard III that he all but breaks into song and limping dance. Yes, if history’s favorite hunchback were given just a smidgen more of a sense of humor, this Trinity Summer Shakespeare Project rendition could have turned into an Elizabethan Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Just as well. It’s hard to slam doors in outdoor performances, and Shakespearean scholarship might never recover from the sight of Dickie III doing the Time Warp.

Although Ben Steinfeld looks like he could pull it off. He packs so much authoritative personality into the twisted royal that you could believe anything for a moment. This Richard is malformed within more than without, wielding a pair of arm-clip crutches rather than bearing a hunch, allowing Steinfeld to move with agility, much as Richard swiftly overcomes his situational limitations.

The playwright has Richard, who starts out as the Duke of Gloucester, brazenly address us at the outset and frequently throughout, much as he later had Iago brag about his villainy. But there’s nothing motiveless about this man’s malignancy. He wants the crown and will see to the deaths of friends and foes, wife as well as other kin, if needs be.

Theatrical inventiveness notwithstanding, the play itself is an endurance contest for audiences, even with a 90-minute version like this one. Characters are eliminated (why have two ill-fated princes when one will do) and events condensed. The abbreviated tale isn’t more confusing with the shortening, and not just because it’s in the sure hands of director Amanda Dehnert. No, this culminating historical drama in Shakespeare’s tetralogy, which begin with the three Henry VI plays, could not be more confusing if there were twice the number of characters and court intrigues.

Contemporary audiences knew the participants and historical incidents like we might know West Wing episodes or sitcom plots, so name-dropping sufficed. The decline of the Plantagenets and the rise of the Tudors was a familiar tale; what was fun to look at was all the nefarious filigree Shakespeare could spin.

But it’s not necessary for us to keep track of who’s who to follow the malevolent undercurrent, just so we know whether Richard is conversing with a co-conspirator or someone he’s trying to fool. When he is making the implausible attempt to woo Lady Anne (Claire Karpen), telling her he killed her husband because he was smitten by her beauty, the story flows whether or not we believe she bought the blarney. (Shakespeare isn’t much help here with the lines he feeds them, leaving the actors to their own devices.)

What is believable is that Richard can seduce the ambitious around him to his own purposes. Rivers (Noah Brady), brother to Queen Elizabeth (no, not that Queen Elizabeth — not to be confused with her daughter, also Elizabeth) succumbs easily, as does Buckingham (Andy Grotelueschen). The latter is more useful to Richard, so he lives somewhat longer, helping with such tasks as seeing that young Clarence (Sean McConaghy, with midi-blouse and teddy bear), brother to the dead king Edward (Brian Platt), is imprisoned for treason. (We don’t get to see him drowned in a cask of malmsey wine, as history and Shakespeare cite as his end.) As for Queen Elizabeth (Niambi Nataki), she goes from hapless to helpless as Richard plots her way out of power after the death of her husband.

Steinfeld gets to play so over-the-top a villain, and portrays him with such verve, that he shouldn’t have much competition here. But Mariah Sage Leeds’s Queen Margaret, Henry VI’s banished wife, gives the rambunctious Richard a run for his ferocity. Margaret curses all assembled at court, predicting dire ends for everyone (which gives the groundlings a little historical refresher lesson). Leeds provides a gimlet-eyed, feral intensity that could blow the hump off a camel.

The breakneck pace necessary for a condensation, as well as to not bore us, leaves little opportunity for nuanced character development. But the Trinity troupe handled the challenge and limitations well. Not having comical opportunities, director Dehnert can’t provide the young actors the entertaining props and stage business that they often have to work with. Prominent as a backdrop is a white sheet with various names scrawled, each of which will eventually be crossed out in red. Since there is so much blood on his hands, a clever device that works is Richard dipping a hand in a bucket and smearing his next victim with gore.

Richard III continues through August 14 at various locations around the state. (Much Ado About Nothing begins July 6.) For sites and times, visit trinityrep.com.