There’s a curiously counterproductive dynamic at work in “Richard III” at Nicu’s Spoon. In this production, two actors share the role of Shakespeare’s murderous king: One of them, Henry Holden, stands on a leg brace and crutches at the center of the action, largely mute, as a younger man, Andrew Hutcheson, speaks Richard’s lines from behind a music stand in the corner.

The text being paramount in Shakespeare, at least in English-language productions, the audience’s attention is irresistibly drawn to Mr. Hutcheson’s mellifluous voice as Mr. Holden mimes his way through Richard’s scenes.

Nicu’s Spoon, a small company that produces what it calls “socially reflective” work and has dedicated its season to “the disabled artist,” surely cannot have intended to slight Mr. Holden, who contracted polio as a child and who is an activist for people with disabilities.

But that is the unfortunate effect of dividing the role, a choice the company evidently believed would disclose the dichotomy between Richard as he was externally perceived and Richard’s internal self-reflection. In practice, though, allowing one performer only the power of movement and another only the power of speech cripples both, defangs Richard, and proves fatal to Heidi Lauren Duke’s production.

With Richard’s body in one place and his voice — aside from the very few times Mr. Holden speaks —in another, this “Richard III” loses its core. Unlike sign-language interpretation for deaf theatergoers or audio description for blind audiences, each of which is akin to subtitling, this conceit halves rather than supplements the performance.

And in the process, it stymies the play’s other actors, who are forced to try to connect with a character who is literally not all there. When Queen Elizabeth (Rebecca Challis) instructs Richard with bitter sarcasm in how to woo her daughter, whose brothers he has killed, she might as well have no one playing opposite her.

Even more disturbing, stripping Richard of his autonomy renders him so impotent that he hardly seems a threat to anyone, let alone to England.

But that last effect may be just as the production team intended. In a program note, artistic director Stephanie Barton-Farcas describes Richard as “just a normal guy who has had enough and wants things that are rightfully his and will earnestly try his best to get them — in reality, the story of any disabled member of our society even today.” But this is a problematic interpretation: Here, the throne is not rightfully Richard’s, and he leaves a trail of dead family members in his attempt to usurp it.

True, Shakespeare may have intended Richard’s imperfect body as a metaphor for his withered morality, but his disability hardly excuses his penchant for homicide. In Richard’s own estimation, he is “subtle, false, and treacherous.” To blame his actions on his treatment at the hands of a cruel society is condescending at best. It also robs the play of its villain.

Amid the conceptual muddle, much of the rest of the production — the first for Nicu’s Spoon in its new, 40-seat Midtown space — fails to congeal. Acting styles vary widely: One of Clarence’s killers seems to have wandered in from Sheriff Taylor’s Mayberry. And Ms. Barton-Farcas’s costuming is similarly erratic, ranging from regal velvets and heels to prairie-style widow’s weeds paired with motorcycle boots.

All excellence, however, is not lost. Doubling as Clarence (Richard’s doomed brother) and Richmond, Jason Loughlin speaks with an easy elegance and comfortably inhabits the skin of his characters. His presence compels attention. Little else in this disjointed production, however, does the same.

Until July 29 (38 W. 38th St., between Fifth and Sixth avenues, 212-352-3101).