Customer Reviews

Richard III

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Shakespeare's plays were meant to be enjoyed in a theatre. Reading his scripts is difficult and clumsy at best and the only reason I own this book is that I had to buy it for a university English course. If you're interested in Shakespeare's telling of Richard 3rd, then call your local theatre company and request it.

This historical drama, not exactly accurate for all I know (but who cares, it's Billy) depicts one of the best bad guys in all literature, to the point of caricature (and this rhymes!). Richard III is the impersonation of ugliness and pure evil: he is a man both morally and physically malformed, who gives everything for the sake of a vain and insignificant moment of power. He is pure rancour enveloped in hypocrisy and treason. He kills his relatives, including his two child nephews, then he marries his rival's widow, and finally he gets what he deserves screaming: "A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"

"Richard III" is a wonderful satire; as always with WS, the dialogues are perfect and the action supreme. It is not intended to be real history, but a satire of ambition run amok, of the lonely obsession for power and of the depths of evil which humans can reach. It has humorous moments and it was, in its times, good politics, since Richard belonged to the predecessors in power of Queen Elizabeth's family . Another masterpiece by the Bard.

Having never read Richard III, I knew that I would be in for a treat, but nothing quite THIS good. Originally labeled as The Tragedy of Richard III by Shakespeare, one can see, upon reading this enthralling play, why this history/tragedy firmly entrenched itself as one of The Bard's most prolifically performed plays with almost unrivaled longevity due to its immense popularity among the genteel and yeomen alike.

Although the much-maligned humpback King Richard was by no means a saint by any stretch, he was not, however, as wretchedly insidious as Shakespeare might have us believe. In an effort to pander to Queen Elizabeth, Shakespeare cast perhaps an overly morose shadow over the House of York. The play itself, interestingly enough, focuses not so much on the bloody ending of The War of Roses and the ascension to the throne of Henry VII(the grandfather of Elizabeth) as it does on the uncannily cunning connivances of Richard III. Richard's dastardly deeds, the sordid means to his end of usurping the crown, know no limits as he murders any and all who dare get in his way - and even those that don't(I suppose they're guilty by association).

Inextricably, although I by no means empathize with him even remotely, Richard somehow, despite his inordinately decadent reprobate ploys, coupled with his twisted soliloquies pleading to the audience his hopeless case, make him one entirely enigmatic, yet entirely captivating, antagonist that makes this play enticingly enjoyable -- in a most devilish kind of way.

"O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!"

Let's get one thing clear from the start: when I rate Shakespeare, I rate it against other Shakespeare; otherwise, the consistently high ratings would not be very informative. If I was rating this against the general run of literature available, it would unquestionably rate 5 stars.

So what brings it down to 4, as compared to other Shakespeare? Primarily a few places where it demands a bit too much suspension of disbelief; the language is some of Shakespeare's best, and is comparatively easy for a modern reader (I found most of the footnotes to be sufficiently unnecessary to be actually more distraction than help). But for one thing, if Richard is withered, hunchbacked, and deformed, how is it that he has been able to kill so many of his victims in battle? For another thing, is it REALLY plausible that Princess Anne would be persuaded as she was by someone with nothing more going for him than Richard? To paraphrase the scene,

Anne: You killed my husband and his father! I hate you I hate you I hate you!

Richard: But I only did it 'cause I'm hot for you, babe! Wanna marry me?

Anne: Welll...maybe. Let me think about it.

(And, in fact, she marries him. Just like that.)

Also, there are virtually NO characters in this play that are sympathetic, save perhaps for the two murdered children and Richmond, and we really don't see enough of them to feel much connection; it dilutes the effectiveness of the portrayal of Richard's evil when almost all of the other characters are, if not just as bad, certainly bad enough.

Shakespeare got away with this play because he is critical of two monastic houses that were no longer in power when he lived. The ultimate nod to the Tudors and Stuarts for whom Shakespeare worked, this play paints a picture of the York and Lancastrian dynasties as petty and foolish--as inbred buffoons. One of the most comic scenes (yes, I said comic) comes in Act II when the Duchess gets together with the wife of Clarence and his children and they all argue over who has the most to mourn.

This play is a good sketch of human self-centeredness, and we like Richard perhaps because he is the only character willing to admit he's a hypocrite.

By the way, I always recommend that students buy the Folger edition--this version eliminates the side-by-side in lieu of a comprehensive glossary parallel to each page of text.

someone said that three good scenes and you have a good movie, and the same might be said of a play. rickard iii does this one better and has four good scenes: the wooing of lady anne; the wooing of richard by buckinham to accept the crown; king richard suing queen elizabeth to persuade her daughter to marry the newly crowned regent: these three are pretty commonly accepted as the best scenes. but i also like the scene in the first act when all the protagonists are gathered together, and richard begins to plant suspicions in everyone's minds, so that everyone ends up bickering. then the loony queen margaret joins the fray and denounces everyone to his desert. it's a great way to start a play to have so much discord and dissension. it's a riot to watch all these undeserving people going at each other's throats.

i think this is one reason i didn't find richard's actions as objectionable as i should have, and why i even sympathized with richard when he dies at the end. yes, he killed a lot of people, but most of these people were not the best human beings to begin with.

so off with their heads, i say!

i also thought some of the characters' actions were hard to swallow. for example, i couldn't buy how quickly lady anne agreed to marry richard. i don't care how vain she is, no-one changes feelings on a dime like that. and why the queen turned her young son over to richard's care when she knew it was richard who had her brother and sons executed is a mystery. can this woman be that stupid?

and what about that last rallying speech of richard's? shakespeare couldn't have written a worse speech. all through the play richard is shown as a person who manipulates people by appealing to their own self-interest: lady anne's vanity, the queen's ambition, buckinham's greed, etc. then, in his hour of need, when he has to rouse his troupes to his defence, what does he do? he tries to scare the *&%& out of his men! in other words, he uses the stick instead of the carrot. can this be the same richard? i don't think so.

shakespeare was obviously taking some shortcuts here. still, a pretty good play, though not a hamlet by a long shot. but richard iii is a character worth knowing.

"Richard III" is a fun play. It has some great lines like "True hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings/Kings it makes gods and meaner creatures kings" (not said by the title character, though) and of course "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!", the line that committed many men to the Richard III ward of Monty Python's Hospital for Overacting. But it also showcases the life and times of one of the meanest men ever to hit the stage: Richard, Duke of Gloucester, unlawful heir to the throne of England.

Richard's outward appearance is unfortunate -- he has a crooked back, is unlucky in love, and dogs bark at him -- but it's his inward personality that makes him unpleasant. He's cruel, selfish, manipulative, hot-tempered -- for dramatic purposes, he makes the perfect villain. Nobody seems to like him except his cronies Catesby and Buckingham, and even Buckingham later turns against him; even his own mother despises him after she figures out what a rat he is. On the other hand, he has all the positive qualities of a fighting underdog: Rather than wallow in self-pity over his deformity, he's decisive, fearless, and motivated. Only in the last act, when he realizes that he does indeed have a "coward conscience," does his confidence begin to falter.

Richard tells the audience in the very first scene what kind of guy he is and what he's planning to do, which is ultimately to become King of England, the office held currently by his brother Edward IV. To do this, he must arrange for the deaths of his brother George the Duke of Clarence, King Edward's sons, the Lord Chamberlain, and Buckingham, done by simply dispatching his henchmen. All the while, he is continually informing the audience of his next vicious scheme, winking at us with a you-know-you-love-me-anyway impudence as though we were accomplices in his dirty deeds.

What makes Richard the perfect dramatic villain, though, is not just his wickedness, but the underhanded ways he deflects censure from the people he most wishes to impress. Watch how he plays the innocent lamb to Lady Anne, whose husband and father-in-law he murdered and whom he is trying to marry; how he rationalizes his evil deeds to Queen Elizabeth, whose sons he ordered killed and whose daughter he would like to marry after Anne dies; how he feigns piety and modesty to appear to the English people all the more deserving of the crown. I think this is the mark of Shakespeare's genius -- creating not just a bad guy, but a guy who's so bad he knows exactly how and when to pretend to be good.

This play by Shakespeare is a fundamental achievement in drama. The main character is shown as evil but at the same time, if one can read properly and see all the details, he is the one who finally establishes the principle that the English king has to be accepted at least if not selected by the representative of the City of London, hence establishing the « constitutional » or « parliamentary » nature of the English Crown. It also establishes the fact that a bad king must give way to a good one, that it is a moral duty for everyone to fight against a bad king. We are miles away from the feudal acceptance of the king as the direct representative of God on earth and against whom all rebellion is unacceptable. The play builds up this moral resistance against the bad king little by little and makes it irreversible. Here we really touch the historical value of this king : he is a complete turning point in the English monarchy : the king has to accept being scrutinized and criticized by all the representatives of civil society, even if, for a time at least, these can be lured and cheated. Sooner or later good will prevail. This is Shakespeare's fundamental belief that tragedy comes from the disruption of a balanced situation by some crime and finds its resolution in the rebalancing of the situation by the elimination of the bad ones and the coming to the front of a new generation of good ones. The value of this belief in our present world is fundamental and essential.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

This edition has one of the best introductions I've read: informative, well-written and with photos from productions of R III. Just the section on Macbeth and Richard makes this top-notch. Even the Folio/Quarto stuff is interesting -- short and not pedantic. This is my choice for Richard III edition.

I'm a Ricardian, but I love this play--it's Shakespare at his finest. He manipulates the historical characters beautifully, especially Richard himself (and Richard then manipulates most of the other characters). The play opens with Richard, then Duke of Gloucester, who gives a poetic list of all the nasty things that he will do...why? Because he wants to be king? Partly. But there are plenty of psychological reasons as well (for instance, does anyone notice that once Richard does become king, he isn't as happy as he thought he'd be?).

Slowly, Old Crookback's conscience begins to tug (forget the Sixth Sense, *he* sees plenty of dead people himself!). Some of my favorite quotes are to be found here, for instance:

Anne Neville, to Richard, before accepting his proposal of marriage: "Never hung poison on a fouler toad. Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes."

or

"Off with his son George's head!" And of course "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" and the very nifty little pun at the beginning of the play. (Richard's lines, of course.)

You *do* begin to like him, that that *is* rather frightening!