Richard III (play)

Frontispage of the First Quarto Richard The Third

Richard III is a historical play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1592. It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of King Richard III of England.^[1] The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified as such. Occasionally, however, as in the quarto edition, it is termed a tragedy. Richard III concludes Shakespeare's first tetralogy (also containing Henry VI parts 1–3).

It is the second longest play in the canon after Hamlet, and is the longest of the First Folio, whose version of Hamlet is shorter than its Quarto counterpart. The play is rarely performed unabridged; often, certain peripheral characters are removed entirely. In such instances extra lines are often invented or added from elsewhere in the sequence to establish the nature of characters' relationships. A further reason for abridgment is that Shakespeare assumed that his audiences would be familiar with the Henry VI plays, and frequently made indirect references to events in them, such as Richard's murder of Henry VI or the defeat of Henry's queen, Margaret.

Characters

House of York

• King Edward IV – King of England
• Richard, Duke of Gloucester – brother to Edward IV; later King Richard III
• George, Duke of Clarence – Edward IV's brother
• Duchess of York – Edward, Richard and George's mother
• Edward, Prince of Wales – Edward IV's eldest son; later King Edward V (never crowned)
• Richard, Duke of York – Edward IV's younger son
• Boy – George's son
• Girl – George's daughter

House of Lancaster

• Queen Margaret – widow of King Henry VI
• Ghost of King Henry VI
• Ghost of Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales – Henry VI's son
• Lady Anne Neville – widow of Edward of Westminster; later Queen to King Richard III
• Tressel and Berkeley – Lady Anne's attendants (non-speaking roles)

Woodville family

• Queen Elizabeth – Queen to King Edward IV
• Earl Rivers – Elizabeth's brother
• Marquis of Dorset – Elizabeth's son (from a previous marriage)
• Lord Richard Grey – Elizabeth's son (from a previous marriage)
• Sir Thomas Vaughan – ally of Rivers and Grey

Richard III's group

• Duke of Buckingham
• Sir William Catesby
• Duke of Norfolk
• Earl of Surrey^{[lower-alpha 1]} – Norfolk's son
• Sir Richard Ratcliffe
• Sir James Tyrrell – assassin
• Lord Lovel^{[lower-alpha 2]}
• Two Murderers
• Richard's page

Earl of Richmond's group

• Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond – Henry VI's nephew; later King Henry VII
• Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby – Richmond's stepfather
• Earl of Oxford^{[lower-alpha 3]}
• Sir Walter Herbert^{[lower-alpha 4]}
• Sir James Blunt^{[lower-alpha 5]}
• Sir William Brandon – Richmond's standard-bearer (non-speaking role)

Clergy

• Archbishop of Canterbury^{[lower-alpha 6]}
• Archbishop of York^{[lower-alpha 7]}
• Bishop of Ely
• Sir Christopher – chaplain of Stanley's household
• John – priest

Other Characters

• Lord Hastings – Lord Chamberlain under Edward IV
• Sir Robert Brackenbury – Lieutenant of the Tower
• Lord Mayor of London
• Scrivener
• Keeper of the Tower^{[lower-alpha 8]}
• Three Citizens
• Hastings – pursuivant^{[lower-alpha 9]}
• Sheriff of Wiltshire^{[lower-alpha 10]}
• Ghosts of Clarence, Rivers, Grey, Vaughan, Edward (Prince of Wales), Richard (Duke of York), Hastings, Lady Anne and Buckingham
• Lords, Messengers, Soldiers etc.

Other

• Although they do not appear in the text of the play, many productions include as on-stage characters Jane Shore (Edward IV's mistress), Elizabeth of York (Edward IV's daughter, later queen consort to Richmond (Henry VII)), and George Stanley (Lord Stanley's son, who is held hostage by Richard prior to the Battle of Bosworth Field)

Synopsis

The play begins with Richard (called "Gloucester" in the text) standing in "a street", describing the accession to the throne of his brother, King Edward IV of England, eldest son of the late Richard, Duke of York.

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

("sun of York" is a punning reference to the badge of the "blazing sun," which Edward IV adopted, and "son of York", i.e. the son of the Duke of York.)

Richard is an ugly hunchback who is "rudely stamp'd", "deformed, unfinish'd", and cannot "strut before a wanton ambling nymph." He responds to the anguish of his condition with an outcast's credo: "I am determined to prove a villain / And hate the idle pleasures of these days." Richard plots to have his brother Clarence, who stands before him in the line of succession, conducted to the Tower of London over a prophecy he bribed a soothsayer to finagle the suspicious King with; that "G of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be", which the king interprets as referring to George of Clarence (without realizing it actually refers to Gloucester).

Richard now schemes to woo "the Lady Anne" – Anne Neville, widow of the Lancastrian Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. He confides to the audience:

I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.
What, though I kill'd her husband and her father?

The scene then changes to reveal Lady Anne accompanying the corpse of the late king Henry VI, along with Trestle and Berkeley, on its way to be interred at St Paul's cathedral. She asks them to set down the "honourable load – if honour may be shrouded in a hearse," and then laments the fate of the house of Lancaster. Richard suddenly appears and demands that the "unmannerd dog" carrying the hearse set it down, at which point a brief verbal wrangling takes place.

Despite initially hating him, Anne is won over by his pleas of love and repentance and agrees to marry him. When she leaves, Richard exults in having won her over despite all he has done to her, and tells the audience that he will discard her once she has served her purpose.

The atmosphere at court is poisonous: The established nobles are at odds with the upwardly mobile relatives of Queen Elizabeth, a hostility fueled by Richard's machinations. Queen Margaret, Henry VI's widow, returns in defiance of her banishment and warns the squabbling nobles about Richard. Queen Margaret curses Richard and the rest who were present. The nobles, all Yorkists, reflexively unite against this last Lancastrian, and the warning falls on deaf ears.

Richard orders two murderers to kill Clarence in the tower. Clarence, meanwhile, relates a dream to his keeper. The dream includes vivid language describing Clarence falling from an imaginary ship as a result of Gloucester, who had fallen from the hatches, striking him. Under the water Clarence sees the skeletons of thousands of men "that fishes gnawed upon." He also sees "wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, inestimable stones, unvalued jewels." All of these are "scatterd in the bottom of the sea." Clarence adds that some of the jewels were in the skulls of the dead. He then imagines dying and being tormented by the ghosts of his father-in-law (Warwick, Anne's father) and brother-in-law (Edward, Anne's future husband).

After Clarence falls asleep, Brakenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, enters and observes that between the titles of princes and the low names of commoners there is nothing different but the "outward fame", meaning that they both have "inward toil" whether rich or poor. When the murderers arrive, he reads their warrant (issued in the name of the King), and exits with the Keeper, who disobeys Clarence's request to stand by him, and leaves the two murderers the keys.

Clarence wakes and pleads with the murderers, saying that men have no right to obey other men's requests for murder, because all men are under the rule of God not to commit murder. The murderers imply Clarence is a hypocrite because, as one says, "thou ... unripped'st the bowels of thy sovereign's son [Edward] whom thou wast sworn to cherish and defend." Trying to win them over by tactics, he tells them to go to his brother Gloucester, who will reward them better for his life than Edward will for his death. One murderer insists Gloucester himself sent them to perform the bloody act, but Clarence does not believe him. He recalls the unity of Richard Duke of York blessing his three sons with his victorious arm, bidding his brother Gloucester to "think on this and he will weep." Sardonically, a murderer says Gloucester weeps millstones – echoing Richard's earlier comment about the murderers' own eyes weeping millstones rather than "foolish tears" (Act I, Sc. 3).

Next, one of the murderers explains that his brother Gloucester hates him, and sent them to the Tower to kill him. Eventually, one murderer gives in to his conscience and does not participate, but the other killer stabs Clarence and drowns him in "the Malmsey butt within". The first act closes with the perpetrator needing to find a hole to bury Clarence.

Richard uses the news of Clarence's unexpected death to send Edward IV, already ill, into his deathbed, all the while insinuating that the Queen is behind the execution of Clarence. Edward IV soon dies, leaving as Protector his brother Richard, who sets about removing the final obstacles to his accession. He has Lord Rivers murdered to further isolate the Queen and to put down any attempts to have the Prince crowned right away. He meets his nephew, the young Edward V, who is en route to London for his coronation accompanied by relatives of Edward's widow (Lord Hastings, Lord Grey, and Sir Thomas Vaughan). These Richard arrests, and eventually beheads, and then has a conversation with the Prince and his younger brother, the duke of York. The two princes outsmart Richard and match his wordplay and use of language easily. Richard is nervous about them, and the potential threat they are. The young prince and his brother are coaxed (by Richard) into an extended stay at the Tower of London. The prince and his brother the duke of York prove themselves to be extremely intelligent and charismatic characters, boldly defying and outsmarting Richard and openly mocking him.

Assisted by his cousin Buckingham, Richard mounts a campaign to present himself as the true heir to the throne, pretending to be a modest, devout man with no pretensions to greatness. Lord Hastings, who objects to Richard's accession, is arrested and executed on a trumped-up charge of treason. Together, Richard and Buckingham spread the rumour that Edward's two sons are illegitimate, and therefore have no rightful claim to the throne; they are assisted by Catesby, Ratcliffe, and Lovell. The other lords are cajoled into accepting Richard as king, in spite of the continued survival of his nephews (the Princes in the Tower).

English actor David Garrick as Richard III just before the battle of Bosworth Field. His sleep having been haunted by the ghosts of those he has murdered, he wakes to the realisation that he is alone in the world and death is imminent. The painting, David Garrick as Richard III (1745), by William Hogarth.

Richard asks Buckingham to secure the death of the princes, but Buckingham hesitates. Richard then recruits James Tyrrell, who kills both children. When Richard denies Buckingham a promised land grant, Buckingham turns against Richard and defects to the side of Henry, Earl of Richmond, who is currently in exile. Richard has his eye on his niece, Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's next remaining heir, and poisons Lady Anne so he can be free to woo the princess. The Duchess of York and Queen Elizabeth mourn the princes' deaths, when Queen Margaret arrives. Queen Elizabeth, as predicted, asks Queen Margaret's help in cursing. Later, the Duchess applies this lesson and curses her only surviving son before leaving. Richard asks Queen Elizabeth to help him win her daughter's hand in marriage, but she is not taken in by his eloquence, and eventually manages to trick and stall him by saying she will let him know her daughter's answer in due course.

The increasingly paranoid Richard loses what popularity he had. He soon faces rebellions led first by Buckingham and subsequently by the invading Richmond. Buckingham is captured and executed. Both sides arrive for a final battle at Bosworth Field. Prior to the battle, Richard is visited by the ghosts of his victims, all of whom tell him to "Despair and die!" after which they wish victory upon Richmond. He awakes screaming for "Jesu" to help him, slowly realising that he is all alone in the world, and cannot even pity himself.

At the Battle of Bosworth Field, Lord Stanley (who is also Richmond's stepfather) and his followers desert Richard's side, whereupon Richard calls for the execution of George Stanley, Lord Stanley's son. This does not happen, as the battle is in full swing, and Richard is left at a disadvantage. Richard is soon unhorsed on the field at the climax of the battle, and cries out, "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" Richmond kills Richard in the final duel. Subsequently, Richmond succeeds to the throne as Henry VII, and marries Princess Elizabeth from the House of York.

Date and text

The first page of Richard III, printed in the Second Folio of 1632

Richard III is believed to be one of Shakespeare's earlier plays, preceded only by the three parts of Henry VI and perhaps a handful of comedies. It is believed to have been written c. 1591. Although Richard III was entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on 20 October 1597, by the bookseller Andrew Wise, who published the first Quarto (Q1) later that year (with printing done by Valentine Simmes),^[2] Christopher Marlowe's Edward II, which cannot have been written much later than 1592 (Marlowe died in 1593) is thought to have been influenced by it. A second Quarto (Q2) followed in 1598, printed by Thomas Creede for Andrew Wise, containing an attribution to Shakespeare on its title page.^[3] Q3 appeared in 1602, Q4 in 1605, Q5 in 1612, and Q6 in 1622; the frequency attesting to its popularity. The First Folio version followed in 1623.

The Folio is longer than the Quarto, and contains some fifty additional passages amounting to more than two hundred lines. However, the Quarto contains some twenty-seven passages amounting to about thirty-seven lines which are absent from the Folio.^[4]:p.2 The two texts also contain hundreds of other differences, including the transposition of words within speeches, the movement of words from one speech to another, the replacement of words with near-synonyms, and many changes in grammar and spelling.^[4]:p.2

At one time it was thought that the Quarto represented a separate revision of the play by Shakespeare. However, since the Quarto contains many changes which can only be regarded as mistakes, it is now widely believed that the Quarto was produced by memorial reconstruction.^[4]:p.3–10 It is thought likely that the Quarto was collectively produced by a company of actors remembering their lines. It is unknown why the actors did this, but it may have been to replace a missing prompt book.^{[4]:p.19–21} The Folio is regarded as having much higher authority than the Quarto, but because the Folio edition was collated by the printers against a Quarto (probably Q3), some errors from the Quarto found their way into the Folio.^[4]:p.2 Some parts of the Folio (the beginning of Act III and much of Act V) are clearly copied, with little change, direct from the Quarto.^[4]:p.33 The Folio also has its own corruptions and omissions, and corrections have to be supplied, where possible, from the Quarto.^[4]:p.50

Themes

Comedic elements

The play resolutely avoids demonstrations of physical violence; only Richard dies on-stage, while the rest (Clarence, the two princes, Hastings, Brackenbury, Grey, Vaughan, Rivers, Anne, Buckingham, and King Edward) all meet their ends off-stage. Despite the villainous nature of the title character and the grim storyline, Shakespeare infuses the action with comic material, as he does with most of his tragedies. Much of the humour rises from the dichotomy between how Richard's character is known and how Richard tries to appear.

A scene from Richard III, directed by Keith Fowler for the Virginia Shakespeare Festival in Williamsburg, site of the first Shakespearean performances in America. (Here Richard is stabbed with a boar spear by the Earl of Richmond.)

Richard himself also provides some dry remarks in evaluating the situation, as when he plans to marry Queen Elizabeth's daughter: "Murder her brothers, then marry her; Uncertain way of gain ..." Other examples of humour in this play include Clarence's reluctant murderers, and the Duke of Buckingham's report on his attempt to persuade the Londoners to accept Richard ("... I bid them that did love their country's good cry, God save Richard, England's royal king!" Richard: "And did they so?" Buckingham: "No, so God help me, they spake not a word ...") Puns, a Shakespearean staple, are especially well represented in the scene where Richard tries to persuade Queen Elizabeth to woo her daughter on his behalf.

Free will and fatalism

Queen Margaret: "Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog!" Act 1, Scene III. The boar was Richard's personal symbol: Bronze boar mount thought to have been worn by a supporter of Richard III.^[5]

One of the central themes of Richard III is the idea of fate, especially as it is seen through the tension between free will and fatalism in Richard's actions and speech, as well as the reactions to him by other characters. There is no doubt that Shakespeare drew heavily on Sir Thomas More's account of Richard III as a criminal and tyrant as inspiration for his own rendering. This influence, especially as it relates to the role of divine punishment in Richard's rule of England, reaches its height in the voice of Margaret. Janis Lull suggests that "Margaret gives voice to the belief, encouraged by the growing Calvinism of the Elizabethan era, that individual historical events are determined by God, who often punishes evil with (apparent) evil".^[6]:p.6–8

Thus it seems possible that Shakespeare, in conforming to the growing "Tudor Myth" of the day, as well as taking into account new theologies of divine action and human will becoming popular in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, sought to paint Richard as the final curse of God on England in punishment for the deposition of Richard II in 1399.^[6]:p.6–8 Irving Ribner argued that "the evil path of Richard is a cleansing operation which roots evil out of society and restores the world at last to the God-ordained goodness embodied in the new rule of Henry VII".^[7]:p.62

Marxist scholar Victor Kiernan writes that this interpretation is a perfect fit with the English social perspective of Shakespeare's day: "An extension is in progress of a privileged class's assurance of preferential treatment in the next world as in this, to a favoured nation's conviction of having God on its side, of Englishmen being ... the new Chosen People".^{[8]:p.111–112} As Elizabethan England was slowly colonising the world, the populace embraced the view of its own Divine Right and Appointment to do so, much as Richard does in Shakespeare's play.

However, historical fatalism is merely one side of the argument of fate versus free will. It is also possible that Shakespeare intended to portray Richard as "... a personification of the Machiavellian view of history as power politics".^[6]:p.6–8 In this view, Richard is acting entirely out of his own free will in brutally taking hold of the English throne. Kiernan also presents this side of the coin, noting that Richard "boasts to us of his finesse in dissembling and deception with bits of Scripture to cloak his 'naked villainy' (I.iii.334–8)...Machiavelli, as Shakespeare may want us to realise, is not a safe guide to practical politics".^{[8]:p.111–112}

Kiernan suggests that Richard is merely acting as if God is determining his every step in a sort of Machiavellian manipulation of religion as an attempt to circumvent the moral conscience of those around him. Therefore, historical determinism is merely an illusion perpetrated by Richard's assertion of his own free will. The Machiavellian reading of the play finds evidence in Richard's interactions with the audience, as when he mentions that he is "determinèd to prove a villain" (I.i.30). However, though it seems Richard views himself as completely in control, Lull suggests that Shakespeare is using Richard to state "the tragic conception of the play in a joke. His primary meaning is that he controls his own destiny. His pun also has a second, contradictory meaning—that his villainy is predestined—and the strong providentialism of the play ultimately endorses this meaning".^[6]:p.6–8

Literary critic Paul Haeffner writes that Shakespeare had a great understanding of language and the potential of every word he used.^{[9]:p.56–60} One word that Shakespeare gave potential to was "joy". This is employed in Act I, Scene III, where it is used to show "deliberate emotional effect".^{[9]:p.56–60} Another word that Haeffner points out is "kind", which he suggests is used with two different definitions.

The first definition is used to express a "gentle and loving" man, which Clarence uses to describe his brother Richard to the murderers that were sent to kill him. This definition is not true, as Richard uses a gentle façade to seize the throne. The second definition concerns "the person's true nature ... Richard will indeed use Hastings kindly—that is, just as he is in the habit of using people—brutally".^{[9]:p.56–60}

Haeffner also writes about how speech is written. He compares the speeches of Richmond and Richard to their soldiers. He describes Richmond's speech as "dignified" and formal, while Richard's speech is explained as "slangy and impetuous".^{[9]:p.56–60} Richard's casualness in speech is also noted by another writer. However, Lull does not make the comparison between Richmond and Richard as Haeffner does, but between Richard and the women in his life. However, it is important to the women share the formal language that Richmond uses. She makes the argument that the difference in speech "reinforces the thematic division between the women's identification with the social group and Richard's individualism".^{[6]:p.22–23} Haeffner agrees that Richard is "an individualist, hating dignity and formality".^{[9]:p.56–60}

Janis Lull also takes special notice of the mourning women. She suggests that they are associated with "figures of repetition as anaphora—beginning each clause in a sequence with the same word—and epistrophe—repeating the same word at the end of each clause".^{[6]:p.22–23} One example of the epistrophe can be found in Margaret's speech in Act I, Scene III. Haeffner refers to these as few of many "devices and tricks of style" that occur in the play, showcasing Shakespeare's ability to bring out the potential of every word.^{[9]:p.56–60}

Richard as anti-hero

Throughout the play, Richard's character constantly changes and shifts and, in doing so, alters the dramatic structure of the story.

Richard immediately establishes a connection with the audience with his opening monologue. In the soliloquy he admits his amorality to the audience but at the same time treats them as if they were co-conspirators in his plotting; one may well be enamored by his rhetoric^[10] while being appalled by his actions. Richard shows off his wit in Act I, as seen in the interchanges with Lady Anne (Act I, Scene II) and his brother Clarence (Act I, Scene I). In his dialogues Act I, Richard knowingly refers to thoughts he has only previously shared with the audience to keep the audience attuned to him and his objectives. In 1.1, Richard tells the audience in a soliloquy how he plans to claw his way to the throne—killing his brother Clarence as a necessary step to get there. However, Richard pretends to be Clarence's friend, falsely reassures him by saying, "I will deliver you, or else lie for you" (1.1.115); which the audience knows—and Richard tells us after Clarence's exit—is the exact opposite of what he plans to do.^[11]:p.37 Scholar Michael E. Mooney describes Richard as occupying a "figural position"; he is able to move in and out of it by talking with the audience on one level, and interacting with other characters on another.^[11]:p.33

Each scene in Act I is book-ended by Richard directly addressing the audience. This action on Richard's part not only keeps him in control of the dramatic action of the play, but also of how the audience sees him: in a somewhat positive light, or as the protagonist.^{[11]:p.32–33} Richard actually embodies the dramatic character of "Vice" from Medieval morality plays – with which Shakespeare was very familiar from his time – with his "impish-to-fiendish humour". Like Vice, Richard is able to render what is ugly and evil – his thoughts and aims, his view of other characters – into what is charming and amusing for the audience.^[11]:p.38

In the earlier acts of the play, too, the role of the antagonist is filled by that of the old Lancastrian queen, Margaret, who is reviled by the Yorkists and whom Richard manipulates and condemns in Act I, Scene III.

However, after Act I, the number and quality of Richard's asides to the audience decrease significantly, as well as multiple scenes are interspersed that do not include Richard at all,^[11]:p.44 but average Citizens (Act II, Scene III), or the Duchess of York and Clarence's children (Act II, Scene II), who are as moral as Richard is evil. Without Richard guiding the audience through the dramatic action, the audience is left to evaluate for itself what is going on. In Act IV, Scene IV, after the murder of the two young princes and the ruthless murder of Lady Anne, the women of the play – Queen Elizabeth, the Duchess of York, and even Margaret – gather to mourn their state and to curse Richard; and it is difficult as the audience not to sympathise with them. When Richard enters to bargain with Queen Elizabeth for her daughter's hand – a scene whose form echoes the same rhythmically quick dialogue as the Lady Anne scene in Act I – he has lost his vivacity and playfulness for communication; it is obvious he is not the same man.^{[11]:p.32–33}

By the end of Act IV everyone else in the play, including Richard's own mother, the Duchess, has turned against him. He does not interact with the audience nearly as much, and the inspiring quality of his speech has declined into merely giving and requiring information. As Richard gets closer to seizing the crown, he encloses himself within the world of the play; no longer embodying his facile movement in and out of the dramatic action, he is now stuck firmly within it.^[11]:p.47 It is from Act IV that Richard really begins his rapid decline into truly being the antagonist. Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt notes how Richard even refers to himself as "the formal Vice, Iniquity" (3.1.82), which informs the audience that he knows what his function is; but also like Vice in the morality plays, the fates will turn and get Richard in the end, which Elizabethan audiences would have recognised.^[12]

In addition, the character of Richmond enters into the play in Act V to overthrow Richard and save the state from his tyranny, effectively being the instantaneous new protagonist. Richmond is a clear contrast to Richard's evil character, which makes the audience see him as such.^[11]:p.32

Performance

C. 1884 poster advertising an American production of the play, showing many key scenes.

The earliest certain performance occurred on 16 or 17 November 1633, when Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria watched it on the Queen's birthday.^{[13]:p.81–82} The Diary of Philip Henslowe records a popular play he calls Buckingham, performed in December 1593 and January 1594, which might have been Shakespeare's play.

Colley Cibber produced the most successful of the Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare with his version of Richard III, at Drury Lane starting in 1700. Cibber himself played the role till 1739, and his version was on stage for the next century and a half. It contained the line "Off with his head; so much for Buckingham" – possibly the most famous Shakespearean line that Shakespeare did not write. The original Shakespearean version returned in a production at Sadler's Wells Theatre in 1845.^{[14]:p.102 & 414}

Most film versions of Richard III feature actors who had previously played Richard on stage. The two best-known film versions are those with Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen. McKellen's film is directly based on an earlier stage production set in a Nazified England of the 1930s, which toured Europe for six years to sell-out crowds prior to being shortly thereafter adapted to film. McKellen wrote the screenplay for his film version, although he did not direct it. Olivier played Richard on stage for quite a few years in the 1940s before making a film of it in 1955. His film performance, if not the production as a whole, is heavily based on his earlier stage rendition. The Al Pacino film Looking for Richard is a documentary of rehearsals of specific scenes from the play, and a meditation on the play's significance. Pacino had played the role on stage 15 years earlier. In 2011, well-known film actor Kevin Spacey starred in an Old Vic production which subsequently toured the United States, directed by well-known stage and film director Sam Mendes. No plans for a film version have been announced. Spacey had played the role of Richard's henchman, the Duke of Buckingham, in the Pacino film.

Notable stage performers of Richard III

Print of Charles Kean playing Richard III, from a mid 19th century performance of the play.

Adaptations and cultural references

Film

The most famous player of the part in recent times was Laurence Olivier in his 1955 film version. Olivier's film incorporates a few scenes and speeches from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part III and Cibber's rewrite of Shakespeare's play, but cuts entirely the characters of Queen Margaret and the Duchess of York, and Richard's soliloquy after seeing the ghosts of his victims. Olivier has Richard seduce Lady Anne while mourning over the corpse of her husband rather than her father-in-law as in the play. Olivier's rendition has been parodied by many comedians, including Peter Cook and Peter Sellers. Sellers, who had aspirations to do the role straight, appeared in a 1965 TV special on The Beatles' music by reciting "A Hard Day's Night" in the style of Olivier's Richard III. The first episode of the BBC television comedy Blackadder in part parodies the Olivier film, visually (as in the crown motif), Peter Cook's performance as a benevolent Richard, and by mangling Shakespearean text ("Now is the summer of our sweet content made o'ercast winter by these Tudor clouds ...")

Richard Loncraine's 1995 film, starring Ian McKellen, is set in a fictional fascist England in the 1930s, and based on an earlier highly successful stage production. Only about half the text of the play is used. The first part of his Now is the winter of our discontent... soliloquy is a public speech, while the second part is a private monologue. The famous final line of Richard's A horse, my kingdom for a horse is spoken when his jeep becomes trapped after backing up into a large pile of rubble.

In 1996, Al Pacino made his directoral debut and played the title role in Looking for Richard, analyzing the plot of the play and playing out several scenes from it, as well as conducting a broader examination of Shakespeare's continuing role and relevance in popular culture.

In 2002 the story of Richard III was re-told in a movie about gang culture called The Street King.

In 1996, a pristine print of Richard III (1912), starring Frederick Warde in the title role, was discovered by a private collector and donated to the American Film Institute. The 55-minute film is considered to be the earliest surviving American feature film.

Television

The BBC Television Shakespeare version, first broadcast in 1983, starred Ron Cook as Richard.

BBC Two announced plans to air a new adaptation of Richard III in 2016 as part of The Hollow Crown series, with Benedict Cumberbatch set to play the king. Executive producer Pippa Harris commented, "By filming the Henry VI plays as well as Richard III, we will allow viewers to fully appreciate how such a monstrous tyrant could find his way to power, bringing even more weight and depth to this iconic character.”^[15]

References in popular culture

Lincoln's Assassination

President Lincoln was renowned for his love of Shakespeare, and of Richard III in particular.^[16] This fed Confederate propaganda, especially in Virginia, where residents of Richmond saw Lincoln as a Richard-like tyrant and identified their capital city with the Earl of Richmond, the hero of Shakespeare’s play. (See photo of Richmond slaying Richard, above.) Some interpreted Richard’s act IV speech as an omen favorable to the South:

" a bard of Ireland told me once

I should not live long after I saw Richmond."^[17]

The connection between Lincoln and the play was indelibly printed on history when on April 14, 1865, within a fortnight of the president’s visit to the defeated city, he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Shakespearean actor known for playing both Richard and Richmond. Booth’s notorious, final words from the stage were “Sic semper tyrannis.”^[18]

"Winter of our discontent" quote

The 2010 film, The King's Speech, features a scene where the king's speech therapist Lionel Logue, as played by Geoffrey Rush, auditions for the role by reciting the lines, "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun [or son] of York". Shakespeare critic Keith Jones believes that the film in general sets up its main character as a kind of antithesis to Richard III.^[19] The same antithesis was noted by conservative commentator Noah Millman^[20]

In a 2000 Season 2 episode of Family Guy entitled the King is Dead the prodigious Stewie Griffin auditions before his mother using the famous soliloquy from Gloucester now is the winter of our discontent before being rudely interrupted. He is also costumed in period garb which shows a humpback.

In the Red Dwarf episode Marooned, Rimmer objects to Lister's burning of the Complete Works of Shakespeare in an attempt to maintain enough heat to keep him alive. When challenged, Rimmer claims he can quote from it and embarks upon the soliloquy: "Now!...That's all I can remember. You know! That famous speech from Richard III – 'now, something something something something.'"

John Steinbeck used the opening line for the title of his novel The Winter of Our Discontent.

The phrase "Winter of Discontent" is an expression, popularised by the British media, referring to the winter of 1978–79 in the United Kingdom, during which there were widespread strikes by local authority trade unions demanding larger pay rises for their members.

"My kingdom for a horse" quote

In the 1949 Looney Tunes cartoon A Ham in a Role, the dog actor says the Catesby and Richard III's lines, "Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost! A horse, A horse, My kingdom for a horse!" before being kicked out of the window by a Goofy Gophers-hauled horse.

In the 1993 Mel Brooks film Robin Hood: Men in Tights, the character Robin of Locksley, played by Cary Elwes, says "A horse, my kingdom for a horse!" as he arrives in England in the opening scene.

Other

The film Being John Malkovich has many Shakespeare allusions, including a scene in which Malkovich is shown rehearsing Richard III's lines "Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? / Was ever woman in this humour won?" where Richard is boasting about using power, lies, and crime to seduce Lady Anne. As Visual Cultures professor Lynn Turner notes, this scene anticipates a parallel scene in which Craig uses deceit to seduce Maxine through Malkovich.^[21] Mariangela Tempera has noted that the subservience of Lady Anne in the scene contrasts with the self-assertiveness of the actress playing Lady Anne as she seduces Malkovich offstage.^[22]

Adam Sandler's 2011 film Jack and Jill features Al Pacino reprising his role of Richard III, although the movie scenes are modified as Pacino interacts with the audience in a heavily comedic way. Multiple reviewers who panned the film regarded Pacino as the best element of the film.^[23]

In Freaked, an arrogant movie star who has been transformed into a "hideous mutant freak" makes use of his deformity by performing the opening soliloquy, condensed by a local professor in subtitles for the "culturally illiterate" to the more succinct "I'm ugly. I never get laid." One reviewer mentioned this as the best example of how the film seamlessly moves between highbrow and lowbrow culture.^[24]

In The Goodbye Girl, an ambitious actor played by Richard Dreyfus is forced by his off-Broadway producer to play Richard III as a caricature of a homosexual. Paula McFadden (Marsha Mason) describes the performance as "putrid".

In the 1975 film L'important c'est d'aimer, directed by Andrzej Żuławski, a production of “Richard III” in French is a mise en abyme for the drama enveloping the characters in the film.

The manga Requiem of the Rose King by Aya Kanno, which began in 2013, is a loose adaptation of the first Shakespearean historical tetralogy. It depicts Richard III as intersex instead of hunchbacked.^[25]

Notes

Citations

Editions of Richard III

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Tragedy of Richard the Third

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Richard III (play)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Tragedy of King Richard III.

• Richard the Third on Project Gutenberg
• William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Richard the third (London: Andrew Wise, 1597) – HTML version of the first edition.
• Richard III public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• "Now is the winter of our discontent" Soliloquy translated into modern English
• Lesson plans for Richard III at Web English Teacher
• An interactive interview with Sir Ian McKellen. He discusses the opening speech, Richard III and Shakespeare.
• BBC Two confirmed that Benedict Cumberbatch will be playing Richard III in the second part of Mini-Series The Hollow Crown on its Twitter account, saying “We’re delighted to be able to confirm that Benedict Cumberbatch will play Richard III in our second series of Shakespeare’s History plays”

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