NEW YORK - The Broadway premiere of Kevin Costner's "Richard III," produced by Hal Minor under the auspices of Minor Inconveniences Productions LLC, ceased operations Friday at 1:15 p.m. EST, approximately 17 hours after its inaugural curtain rose at the Harold P. Finster Memorial Playhouse, a 1,072-seat venue on West 45th Street whose marquee has since been tarped pending structural inspection.
The closure, announced via a two-sentence press release issued from a Midtown Kinko's at 12:47 p.m., follows what industry observers are calling the most rapid post-opening dissolution in the modern Broadway league, eclipsing the 19-hour run of "The Gingham Diaries" in 1987.
"While we are obviously saddened to shutter less than a day after opening," said Minor, reading from a laminated index card in the alley behind the theater, "we must realize that some things are just not meant to be." Minor has filed preliminary paperwork with the Broadway League's Casualty Review Board, a procedural step required of any production closing prior to its first scheduled matinee.
Critical Reception
The decision to suspend operations was preceded by a sustained barrage of negative notices across every major news market, several of which were published before the Thursday evening performance had, by most accounts, concluded.
"Costner's 'Richard' is a trainwreck that had, by intermission, also located the dumpster fire," wrote NYT Arts critic Marjorie P. Delacroix, in a review timestamped 10:47 p.m. Thursday. "One is forced to ponder what on god's earth prompted anyone to put Shakespeare together with Kevin Costner in the first place, and conclude it could only be the inscrutable machinations of extraterrestrials or perhaps demons."
The Village Voice, operating under what remains of its freelance budget, published a single-word headline followed by 900 words of exegesis. "WTF?" read the header. Critic Darnell S. Chu continued: "Costner as Richard is so psychotically conceived it could've been a breakthrough tour de force, but lands closer to a public safety concern. Costner's Richard is limp, anemic, and yet somehow both boring and frenetic at the same time. Such a bizarre stew of artistic choices could still feed the performance a certain kitsch appeal, if it weren't so utterly pathetic and categorically unwatchable."
Variety's senior theater correspondent, Alistair Finch-Bottomley III, filed his notice at 6:12 a.m. Friday from a press club in the Theater District where he had reportedly been drinking since intermission. "Costner's Richard was, frankly, so hard to watch I'm physically enraged," the review stated. "What starts out as an unoriginal interpretation quickly degrades into a freakish, surreal cartoon of Shakespearean theater. I'm not sure what anyone involved with this production had envisioned, nor what hellish nightmare landscape of bad drugs convinced them to proceed with this disaster, but those responsible should be banned from working in professional theater for the remainder of their useless, amortizable lives."
Artistic Choices Under Review
The play's closing cuts short the former "Yellowstone" actor's Broadway ambitions before they, by most accounts, had even started.
A spokesman for the actor, Dennis K. Fallow of Boulder River Talent Management, issued a statement Friday morning from a parking structure near the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
"Kevin is heartbroken that his performance was not better received," Fallow said. "He felt that he had nailed Richard's crippling ailments admirably, and had spent days studying past performances to really get the subtle nuances of the character as authentic feeling as possible. Perhaps his portrayal of advanced dementia, flaming homosexuality, and costume choices were, in retrospect, ill advised."
The "ill advised" elements, according to production sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are still owed per diem, included:
- A third-act interpretive dance break set to royalty-free stock music titled "Medieval Tension 4 (Lo-Fi)," during which Costner performed what the Playbill called "a corporeal lament for sovereignty" but which stage management's incident report logged as "unstructured rotation, duration unclear."
- The use of a battery-powered, neon-yellow mobility scooter as Richard's throne, which lost power during the climactic Battle of Bosworth Field, necessitating a 14-minute pause while a stagehand named Gary searched for a 9-volt adapter.
- An Appalachian-by-way-of-Elizabethan dialect coached by Dr. Hiram P. Stossel, a semi-retired movement specialist from Poughkeepsie, rendering the famous opening soliloquy as "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this here son of York."
- An inflatable hunchback prosthetic, sourced from a seasonal Halloween retailer, which partially, audibly deflated during the Thursday performance and was thereafter patched with gaffer tape visible from the mezzanine and, per at least three written complaints, still audible from the orchestra.
Administrative Aftermath
The Finster Memorial Playhouse has advised ticket holders that refund processing will require 6 to 8 weeks and must be initiated via Form AW-17(b), available at the box office between 10:00 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. on Tuesdays. StubHub has categorized the event as "Canceled: Act of God / Other."
Actors' Equity confirmed Friday that Costner's membership remains technically active but has been flagged for "educational review," a designation last applied in 2019 to a regional "Macbeth" in which the title role was played by a Bernese Mountain Dog. The Broadway League has scheduled an emergency hearing for Oct. 3 to determine whether Minor Inconveniences Productions LLC should be permitted to file future applications for theatrical licenses within the Special Theater District Zoning Overlay.
Costner is next scheduled to appear at the National Western Stock Show in Denver, where representatives say he will not be performing Shakespeare.
IRREVERENT Newz Wire is a Category 13 information service. This dispatch has been reviewed for compliance by the Bureau of Satirical Standards and is cleared for distribution in all 14 recognized time zones. We love you Mr. Costner.