Cello Practice with Antony Sher, 40 Years After He Controversially Played Richard III On Crutches

 by Dawn S

The production referenced in this poem is the RSC’s 1984 production of ‘Richard III’, in which the late Antony Sher played the title role, who famously has a disability — he is referred to as a hunchback, caused by the condition kyphosis (though it has recently been discovered that the historical Richard III had scoliosis, a different spinal condition). In his book ‘The Year Of the King’, Sher relates how he visually created this disabled character, despite being an able-bodied person himself; to do so he used methods many today consider exploitative and unethical. There is significant debate within theatre at the moment regarding accessibility and representation of disabled characters onstage: who should be allowed to play these roles, and can a disabled character be portrayed ethically by an able-bodied actor? How can we unite Sher’s highly acclaimed presentation of the role with the unethical means used to come by it?

He doesn’t play the cello,

and I’m not sure I can really teach him how.

The hollow body arched between the knees,

right hand claw-like at the bow, and I ask him

whether he’d do it again, his Richard,

would he do it like that, this time? Tell him he was

brilliant and there isn’t much I wouldn’t do

to see that bottled spider sprawled on stage but 

still, would he do it again? His answer is ambiguous.

I say, There is something about this instrument which feels

a lot like kyphosis, don’t you think? We are hunched 

over fingerboard, hunched over bridge. A chromatic

scale, to illustrate the curvature — not that you knew

at the time what it was, or could ever set eyes on that 

rattlesnake spine. Was it exploitative, I ask him, in 1984,

that groundbreaking act of theatre? He is weary-eyed

and I remember that he has done Lear now, all his morals

unbound and retied to confusion, ecstasy, oblivion.

Vibrato, tremolo, harmonic. Arpeggios the soundtrack

to that escapade of fear, the jaunted journey across

the stage, the sly, perverted comments to the scathing

wife-to-be, and he says Well, I don’t think Dick

was ever meant to be played completely ethically,

do you? Perhaps not, I say. He straps the cello

to his back. Although maybe I shouldn’t have

drawn all those disabled people in the book, you know. Sighs. Staggers with the weight of it.