Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon, allows an “RSC stage history” to become a crucible in which the chemistry of the play can be explored.
Finally, we hear the voices of an array of practitioners via interviews with a distinguished actor who has played Richard, the director of a highly successful production, and a designer of a complete cycle of Shakespeare’s history plays. After the interviews, there is a brief essay by Richard Eyre on the experience of directing the play and touring it in Eastern Europe.
FOUR CENTURIES OF
RICHARD III:
AN OVERVIEW
To judge by the number of contemporary references to the play and reprints of the 1597 Quarto,
Richard III
was an immediate popularsuccess from its first performances in the early 1590s—it did much to make the names of both Shakespeare as playwright and Richard Burbage as leading actor. In his commonplace book,
Palladis Tamia
(1598), Francis Meres cites it as an example of Shakespeare’s excellence as a writer of tragedies. The success of Burbage’s performance is evidenced in a well-known anecdote recorded in the diary of a law student, John Manningham:
Upon a time when Burbage played Richard III there was a citizen grew so far in liking with him, that before she went from the play she appointed him to come that night unto her by the name of Richard III. Shakespeare overhearing their conclusion went before, was entertained, and at his game ere Burbage came. Then message being brought that Richard III was at the door, Shakespeare caused return to be made that William the Conqueror was before Richard III. 1
Apart from the light cast upon the relationship between Shakespeare and Burbage, the story, if true, attests to the success of Richard’s seductive onstage persona.
A performance at court was recorded in November 1633 after the birth of Queen Henrietta Maria’s son, the Duke of York (later James II), suggesting that the play remained in the repertoire of the King’s Men until the closure of the theaters when the country collapsed into civil war in 1642.
After the reopening of the theaters with the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660,
Richard III
was assigned to Thomas Killigrew’s company and revived briefly with a new prologue. Thomas Betterton, the best-known actor in the period, played Richard, not in Shakespeare’s play, but in an adaptation by John Caryll,
The English Princess
(1666). This was based on events leading up to the Wars of the Roses and Lady Elizabeth’s choice of Richmond over Richard. When Shakespeare’s play was revived, Betterton played King Edward IV and Richard was played by Samuel Sandford, who specialized in villains. It was with Sandford in mind that Colley Cibber wrote his own immensely successful adaptation, first performed at Drury Lane in 1699.
Cibber’s play is little more than half the length of Shakespeare’s, with Richard’s part even more dominant: the number of his soliloquies is increased whereas the roles of characters such as Buckingham are cut. Hastings, Clarence, Edward, and Margaret are eliminated altogether. There is a concomitant simplification of other characters: Derby (Stanley) and the queen are less ambiguous and Henry Richmond is idealized and given lines from Shakespeare’s
Henry V
. Supposing the audience to have a less intimate knowledge of English history and the identity of the various characters than the original Shakespearean playgoers, Cibber invents scenes with Henry VI at the beginning to clarify the politics and history and to demonstrate Richard’s past evil-doings. Cibber stages the murder of the princes, although this short scene is unique to the edition of 1700 and it is generally believed that it was cut in performance. In the printed version Shakespeare’s lines are in italics while Cibber’s are in Roman type. In his introduction Cibber relates how he was obliged to cut the first act in performance on the grounds that the plight of King Henry VI might remind people of
Finally, we hear the voices of an array of practitioners via interviews with a distinguished actor who has played Richard, the director of a highly successful production, and a designer of a complete cycle of Shakespeare’s history plays. After the interviews, there is a brief essay by Richard Eyre on the experience of directing the play and touring it in Eastern Europe.
FOUR CENTURIES OF
RICHARD III:
AN OVERVIEW
To judge by the number of contemporary references to the play and reprints of the 1597 Quarto,
Richard III
was an immediate popularsuccess from its first performances in the early 1590s—it did much to make the names of both Shakespeare as playwright and Richard Burbage as leading actor. In his commonplace book,
Palladis Tamia
(1598), Francis Meres cites it as an example of Shakespeare’s excellence as a writer of tragedies. The success of Burbage’s performance is evidenced in a well-known anecdote recorded in the diary of a law student, John Manningham:
Upon a time when Burbage played Richard III there was a citizen grew so far in liking with him, that before she went from the play she appointed him to come that night unto her by the name of Richard III. Shakespeare overhearing their conclusion went before, was entertained, and at his game ere Burbage came. Then message being brought that Richard III was at the door, Shakespeare caused return to be made that William the Conqueror was before Richard III. 1
Apart from the light cast upon the relationship between Shakespeare and Burbage, the story, if true, attests to the success of Richard’s seductive onstage persona.
A performance at court was recorded in November 1633 after the birth of Queen Henrietta Maria’s son, the Duke of York (later James II), suggesting that the play remained in the repertoire of the King’s Men until the closure of the theaters when the country collapsed into civil war in 1642.
After the reopening of the theaters with the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660,
Richard III
was assigned to Thomas Killigrew’s company and revived briefly with a new prologue. Thomas Betterton, the best-known actor in the period, played Richard, not in Shakespeare’s play, but in an adaptation by John Caryll,
The English Princess
(1666). This was based on events leading up to the Wars of the Roses and Lady Elizabeth’s choice of Richmond over Richard. When Shakespeare’s play was revived, Betterton played King Edward IV and Richard was played by Samuel Sandford, who specialized in villains. It was with Sandford in mind that Colley Cibber wrote his own immensely successful adaptation, first performed at Drury Lane in 1699.
Cibber’s play is little more than half the length of Shakespeare’s, with Richard’s part even more dominant: the number of his soliloquies is increased whereas the roles of characters such as Buckingham are cut. Hastings, Clarence, Edward, and Margaret are eliminated altogether. There is a concomitant simplification of other characters: Derby (Stanley) and the queen are less ambiguous and Henry Richmond is idealized and given lines from Shakespeare’s
Henry V
. Supposing the audience to have a less intimate knowledge of English history and the identity of the various characters than the original Shakespearean playgoers, Cibber invents scenes with Henry VI at the beginning to clarify the politics and history and to demonstrate Richard’s past evil-doings. Cibber stages the murder of the princes, although this short scene is unique to the edition of 1700 and it is generally believed that it was cut in performance. In the printed version Shakespeare’s lines are in italics while Cibber’s are in Roman type. In his introduction Cibber relates how he was obliged to cut the first act in performance on the grounds that the plight of King Henry VI might remind people of
Similar Books
