STRATFORD, Ont - Canadian theatre veteran Seana McKenna isn't placing any demands on audience members who watch her radical performance as villain Richard III at this summer's Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

"If the audience wants to see me as a male or an odd male, or a transgendered male, or a woman pretending to be a man, that's fine with me," the renowned stage performer said in a recent interview at the repertory theatre in southwestern Ontario.

"I think Richard defies boxes, labels. Nobody knows what to call him because he's out to destroy virtue."

Opening Thursday at the festival's intimate Tom Patterson Theatre, "Richard III" stars McKenna as the bewitching and physically deformed Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as he manipulates and murders his way to the English throne.

McKenna's husband, seasoned stage director Miles Potter, helms the much anticipated production, which also includes Wayne Best as the Duke of Buckingham, Martha Henry as Queen Margaret and Roberta Maxwell as the Duchess of York.

Des McAnuff, the festival's Tony Award-winning artistic director, said a woman has taken on the part of Richard III in London, England, before, but not in Stratford and not, to his knowledge, in North America.

He said the move isn't that all that unusual considering the festival has cast females in male roles before, although never as the lead.

"One of the reasons it's important to do it is we have such strong women in our company and we have these extraordinary actresses," McAnuff said in an interview.

"And of course because Shakespeare's company was all male, he created fewer female roles, and also in the previous ages of misogyny, it's true of many the classical plays. So I'm always looking for opportunities for our women."

Plus, Shakespeare often combined different genres and styles of plays, and cross-dressing was prominent in the Elizabethan/Jacobean body of work, he noted.

"So I think it's the most natural thing in the world to offer, as we did with Brian Bedford and Lady Bracknell (in 2009), a role of the opposite sex if they have the ability and the passion to play the role," said McAnuff.

"Seana clearly has that ability and passion. Why should she be denied an opportunity to fulfil a dream of hers?"

And a dream it has been for McKenna, who is celebrating her 20th season at the Stratford festival, where she's also starring in the one-woman show "Shakespeare's Will" (also directed by Potter).

Of the gender-bending "Richard III," she said she and Potter had "been thinking about it, dreaming about it and talking about it" for a long time and pitched the idea to McAnuff about three years ago.

"I'd always loved the play and the role. I think it's a great role and I must say, I have always been intrigued by joining the other team, you know," said McKenna, sitting on a bench outside the theatre in this picturesque community.

"Some of those roles you don't get to explore as a woman unless maybe in university or theatre school, and I was amazed how his mind works, how the minds of villains work, whether they're different from the females in Shakespeare. Usually the females in Shakespeare are the emotional vessels in a play and it was nice to explore a part that is not so dependent on emotion, I think ... certainly not pleasant emotions."

"And you know, villains are fun!" she said with a laugh. "So I thought it would be nice to play a male villain who doesn't apologize as much as the female villains in a way."

Said McAnuff: "I think it makes so much sense. I think you could describe Richard as a sociopath and a social outcast as well as someone that has great powers of charm as well as the Machiavellian mind, and Seana has terrific charm.

"I think of Seana as really one of Canada's great leading ladies -- she's our Cate Blanchett, as I've said a couple of times -- so I think the fact that she wanted to do this gave me every confidence that she would be able to."

To portray Richard's deformities, McKenna walks onstage with a limp, has a subtle hump and a tilt in her body, and keeps one arm constantly bent. On her head is a wig of long, greasy hair that's balding on top.

Her goal, she says, is to play the essence of Richard: the character Vice, personified, which was a popular character in medieval morality plays.

"I thought Richard was a good role to step over in because Richard is 'other,"' said McKenna, whose career spans over 30 years and 40 productions, including the recent, acclaimed tour of "The Year of Magical Thinking."

"He is described in horrific terms by everyone around him and he is physically disabled, physically deformed, and people chide him, dogs bark at him, people call him names of animals. So he's already separate from society. He's already seen as 'other,' a creature, a nasty thing.

"So being a woman, I thought could only add to that otherness in a way."

With McKenna in the role, Richard also has a new resonance as he delivers his gender-laced lines, including "effeminate remorse," "play the maid's part" and "this is it when men are ruled by women."

Recent headlines about uprisings against tyrants around the world may also add a new nuance to the character, said McKenna, who lives in Harrington, Ont.

"So you're thinking: 'What are we talking about today, right now, with this play? Are we talking about how tyranny becomes a force in the world, how tyrants are allowed to do what they do because no one will do anything to stop them ... is that what we're talking about? I think we are."

"Richard III" was part of the festival's inaugural season in 1953. McKenna said William Needles, who played the role of 1st Murderer/Norfolk in that production, saw her play Richard in a recent preview performance and told her he "loved it."

"I was so touched by his call because," she started before taking in a deep breath. "There's history, you know, not even seven degrees of separation, so it's a treat.

"I wake up every morning going, 'Oh, what do I do today? I play Richard III! That's fantastic. I'm really grateful."

The festival is calling McKenna's leading role in "Richard III" "groundbreaking," but she doesn't want to use that adjective herself just yet.

"Groundbreaking? Yes, I am groundbreaking in that I planted my garden last week," she said with a laugh.

"I don't know. I guess it is. I think it's only groundbreaking if you've planted seeds for something to grow in the future, that's what the meaning of groundbreaking means, really, is to build something.

"So I suppose we'll see in the years to come whether we have indeed broken ground."

The 2011 Stratford Shakespeare Festival opened Monday with "The Merry Wives of Windsor." Other productions in the lineup include "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Twelfth Night," both of which are directed by McAnuff.