Renowned as the most scheming, malevolent, murderous, sly, power-hungry English monarch of all time, history -- and history plays such as Shakespeare's -- have not been kind to Richard III. It may or may not have been a reputation well-deserved, but Richard has had one change at rehabilitation that any maligned monarch would envy -- the discovery of his mortal remains under a car park in Leicester in 2012, and their subsequent re-interment in Leicester Cathedral, in a ceremony solemnized both by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the chief Catholic Cardinal in England -- not to mention an escort of re-enactment veterans in plate mail, inflatable crowns for children, and a poetic reading by Benedict Cumberbatch (a distant relation). Queen Elizabeth II, perhaps wisely, stayed away.
Shakespeare, though he apparently accepted the conventional wisdom of his day, was drawn to Richard III and the intrinsic drama of a king who clawed his way to the top, and was -- for a time -- lord of all he surveyed, despite the congenital curvature of his spine (which, forensic studies of his modern remains have shown, was not so pronounced as had been supposed). And, in performance as in history, there are many Richards -- the inheritor of a sea of troubles spawned by the troubled monarchies of Henry VI and the Wars of the Roses, a man who sought to resolve issues of power even though he did not crave it himself, or a king, ahead of his time in this one way, intuitively sensed the relationship between power and display.
In Richard Loncraine's 1995 film version, Ian McKellen (above) gives us a villain among villains. Set in a vaguely 1930's era London, with authoritarian trappings that evoke Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, it transposes the play quite radically; we see an eight-minute montage of events alongside the opening credits before Richard speaks the first words of the play into a microphone, finishing them later at a urinal in the men's room. The cast is outrageous, with Jim Broadbent channeling Himmler as the Duke of Buckingham, erstwhile mad monarch Nigel Hawthorne as the gullible Clarence, a hammy Robert Downey Jr. as Lord Rivers, and a roomful of other RADA graduates who chew up the scenery with evident glee.
But is this the only Richard we might have? Could one, without violence to the script of the play, give us a sympathetic Richard, or even one we could actually like? It's been tried -- but somehow, when it comes to bunch-backed, scheming kings, a good deal of the fun lies in hating them. Like Lex Luthor or the Joker, we're not really looking for a multi-dimensional character.
So what's your impression, particularly from the early Acts? As always, reference act and scene numbers when applicable.
Shakespeare, though he apparently accepted the conventional wisdom of his day, was drawn to Richard III and the intrinsic drama of a king who clawed his way to the top, and was -- for a time -- lord of all he surveyed, despite the congenital curvature of his spine (which, forensic studies of his modern remains have shown, was not so pronounced as had been supposed). And, in performance as in history, there are many Richards -- the inheritor of a sea of troubles spawned by the troubled monarchies of Henry VI and the Wars of the Roses, a man who sought to resolve issues of power even though he did not crave it himself, or a king, ahead of his time in this one way, intuitively sensed the relationship between power and display.
In Richard Loncraine's 1995 film version, Ian McKellen (above) gives us a villain among villains. Set in a vaguely 1930's era London, with authoritarian trappings that evoke Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, it transposes the play quite radically; we see an eight-minute montage of events alongside the opening credits before Richard speaks the first words of the play into a microphone, finishing them later at a urinal in the men's room. The cast is outrageous, with Jim Broadbent channeling Himmler as the Duke of Buckingham, erstwhile mad monarch Nigel Hawthorne as the gullible Clarence, a hammy Robert Downey Jr. as Lord Rivers, and a roomful of other RADA graduates who chew up the scenery with evident glee.
But is this the only Richard we might have? Could one, without violence to the script of the play, give us a sympathetic Richard, or even one we could actually like? It's been tried -- but somehow, when it comes to bunch-backed, scheming kings, a good deal of the fun lies in hating them. Like Lex Luthor or the Joker, we're not really looking for a multi-dimensional character.
So what's your impression, particularly from the early Acts? As always, reference act and scene numbers when applicable.