Richard III

So how geeky is it to have his'n'hers copies of Richard III? Don't answer that. We saw the Brooklyn Academy of Music production with Kevin Spacey last year and both wanted to read it through again first. The play, by the way, was fun -- a big spectacle, kind of like the circus for grownups without the animal cruelty. But with plenty of scenery chewing. Anyway, the play is bad ass. But you all knew that. ( )

Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots to kill brothers and nephews on his way to the throne of England.

I had a tough time organizing my thoughts after reading this play. Richard is such a rich character. He plots and schemes, but he has some fantastic lines and he's very charismatic. I had a tough time following all the Henry's and Edward's and such, more so than Shakespeare's audience would have, I'm sure. The plotting portion was much more interesting to me than his inevitable downfall, but I think that's at least in part because of how it reads rather than how it would play out on stage. The lines "sword fight and ____ dies," for example, are so quick that I hardly took it in before it was over. I'm not sure that I would read it again, but I'd definitely watch a film version and read up on my English history to learn more about the historical Richard. ( )

Following the deaths of Edward IV and Edward V in 1483, Richard III becomes monarch of England. It is quite a bit into the play before we are introduced to Richard III, but when we are, we see him as a tyrant. What a vivid picture of his wickedness Shakespeare paints! One can't help but wonder if the people of England didn't sing, "Ding, dong, the king is dead, the wicked king is dead" when he died a couple of years after assuming the throne. I really think I'd love to see this one performed live. I may have to settle for a movie version, but I really think that live would be preferable. ( )

(My first book finished during the readathon!)

I don't like reading plays, really. I much prefer to see them performed -- they make much more sense when you do. And I'm not really a fan of Shakespeare: either he's too modern for me or not modern enough (my interest peters out shortly after Malory, ish, and doesn't revive until it starts to struggle back to life with Austen -- and even then...). No doubt some of you are just itching to say (probably not the first time) that I must be a pretty crappy lit student. To which I say, pfffttt. There's more to literature than Shakespeare.

Still, I did think I would take at least one module on Shakespeare -- not counting the Renaissance Lit module I've already done -- and so I'm doing one on the history plays, starting with Richard III. In my experience of reading plays, this is an extremely compelling one. It's never boring, and there's a lot of quick back-and-forth, particularly between Richard and Anne, and Richard and Elizabeth, that's wonderful to read (better yet, I imagine, to see). Richard's a horribly compelling character, though I found that shone through best in the first act.

It's funny how many Shakespearean references I make without knowing exactly where they come from. I found several in this play. Now I know! ( )

Now is the winter of our discontent, intones Richard, Duke of Gloucester at the beginning of Shakespeare's Richard III, one of his most abidingly popular plays, and one of the most chilling portrayals of political tyranny ever seen on stage. Richard emerges from the chaos which surrounds the reign of Henry VI, already dramatised by Shakespeare earlier in his career, determined to become king by removing his elder brother Edward IV by convincing him that their brother Clarence is plotting against the crown. The deaths of both Clarence and Edward take Richard inexorably towards the crown, and the series of murders and conspiracies that Richard masterminds confirms his claim that "I am determined to prove a villain". Richard's political and sexual charisma are truly chilling, and his seduction of Lady Anne, over her husband's corpse is one of the most disturbing scenes in Shakespeare. At another level, the play is also a strongly anti-Yorkist play, which has a vested interest in portraying Richard as such as vicious tyrant before seeing him toppled, ushering in a period of rule which prefigured the Tudor dynasty of which Elizabeth I was herself a part. The play has had a deep and lasting influence on audiences and writers; Brecht rewrote the play as The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, while both Laurance Olivier and Ian Mckellen have produced memorable film versions of Richard III, the latter updating the play into a 1930s fascist state ruled over by a Richard akin to Oswald Mosley. --Jerry Brotton