King Richard III

By William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s skillful manipulation of events and people makes Richard III a chilling incarnation of the lure of evil and the temptation of power.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated throughout by Sir John Gilbert, and includes an introduction by Ned Halley.

Richard, Duke of Gloucester – the bitter, deformed brother of the King – is secretly plotting to seize the throne of England. Charming and duplicitous, powerfully eloquent and viciously cruel, he is prepared to go to any lengths to achieve his goal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Release date: Aug 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781509831685

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—an older daughter Susanna and twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He enjoyed success not only as a playwright and poet, but also as an actor and shareholder in an acting company. Although some think that sometime between 1610 and 1613 Shakespeare retired from the theater and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616, others believe that he may have continued to work in London until close to his death.

Book preview

Contents

INTRODUCTION

KING RICHARD THE THIRD

ACT I

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

ACT II

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

ACT III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE VI

SCENE VII

ACT IV

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

ACT V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

GLOSSARY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

Let’s get one thing straight from the start. King Richard III, who was born on the 2nd of October 1452 and lived only to the age of 32, was neither lame nor a hunch back. There is no record from his own life time of any deformity, and while all the portraits for which he might actually have sat have been lost, surviving copies of the originals suggest no significant disability.

All the same, Shakespeare kicks off this great history play with Richard himself lamenting that in spite of the glory he has lately earned on the battle field, he is such a miser able-looking specimen that no woman will want to look at him.

... I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashion able

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun

And descant on mine own deformity

It’s enough to break your heart. But the way Shakespeare tells it, Richard is not looking for sympathy. On the contrary. As he is to be denied the customary victor’s prize of ravishing a suit ably grateful nymph, this brave man at arms is going to turn to the dark side.

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,

By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,

To set my brother Clarence and the king

In deadly hate the one against the other:

And if King Edward be as true and just

As I am subtle, false and treacherous,

This day should Clarence closely be mew’d up,

About a prophecy, which says that ‘G’

Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be.

This account would have been a helpful reminder to theatre audiences of Shakespeare’s time of just who Richard, Duke of Gloucester (‘G’) was, and what his intentions were. The time in which the action of the play commences is somewhere between 1471 and 1483, and the play was first performed around 1591, so memories of the true history were cloudy. Now, half a millennium after the true tragedy of Richard’s life was played out, and much history related about the actual events of this time, some clarification is probably required.

As the play opens, England’s reigning king is Edward IV. He is the thirteenth successive sovereign from the French Plantagenet dynasty, which has ruled in England since the accession of Henry II in 1154. The Plantagenet line has by now split into two distinct branches, the House of York and the House of Lancaster. Edward IV is with York. He rules with his younger brothers, our hero Richard, and his senior, George, Duke of Clarence. King Edward had seized the throne in 1461 from the Lancastrian king, Henry VI, amid the lengthy period of conflict between these two branches we now call the Wars of Roses, after the heraldic symbols of York and Lancaster, respectively a white and a red rose.

Henry VI, himself the subject of an eponymous play in three parts by Shakespeare, was murdered in 1471, before the action of this play begins, but his part in the story is crucial. The son of Henry V, victor of Agincourt and another featured monarch in Shakespeare’s series of history plays, Henry became king as an infant on his father’s death in 1422. He grew up mentally impaired and ruled under the tutelage of his wife, Margaret of Anjou, along with occasional protectors during periods of acute illness. In 1454 arrived a new protector, Richard, Duke of York, a grandson of Edward III, who in theory was a more rightful claimant to the throne than Henry. Richard served his king loyally enough until 1460 when Queen Margaret decided he was more pretender than protector and sent a Lancastrian army against him. Richard defeated Margaret’s forces and Henry conceded that the Duke was the rightful king. But Richard was subsequently killed in battle at Wakefield. He left behind his widow, Cecily Neville (the Duchess of York in the play), and three sons, Edward, George and Richard, the key figures in Richard III.

Edward IV was crowned in his late father’s place, thanks largely to the influence of his mother’s nephew Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, the nation’s richest nobleman. The deposed Henry was exiled to France, and Edward created his brothers respectively George Duke of Clarence and Richard Duke of Gloucester. They participated in government, but the real power behind Edward’s throne was Warwick. In time, it palled. Edward defied Warwick by marrying Elizabeth Woodville, from an English family, rather than the French princess Warwick had lined up for him. Edward compounded the rift by appointing Lord Rivers, his new father-in-law, and other Woodvilles, to high office. The King also refused to go along with Warwick’s foreign policy wishes, and by 1469 the Earl had despaired of him. Warwick now formed an alliance with the Duke of Clarence. The Duke, who married Warwick’s elder daughter Isabella in 1469, expected to inherit the vast Warwick estates because Isabella had no brothers.

Despite early successes including the capture of the King and the execution of Lord Rivers, Warwick and Clarence failed to unseat Edward. They fled to France and there, amazingly, proposed to the exiled Henry VI and his Lancastrians that he seek to regain his crown with their support. But again, the scheme foundered. Edward and his brother Gloucester (Richard) defeated Warwick and the Lancastrians in two decisive battles at Barnet and Tewkesbury in 1471. Warwick was killed at Barnet, but Clarence, who changed sides just in time, was spared. Richard would not forgive his brother his treason and they were never fully reconciled, particularly after Gloucester married Warwick’s younger daughter Lady Anne Neville in 1472 and claimed a share in the vast inheritance Clarence had hoped to keep entirely for himself. Anne was the widow of Henry VI’s son, Prince Edward, who had been killed at Tewkesbury.

Edward reigned until 1483. He had two sons, Edward and Richard. Gloucester distinguished himself as a soldier and administrator in the north of England, and Clarence continued to scheme against his brothers, who finally lost patience and in 1478 had him secretly murdered in the royal palace, the Tower of London. Clarence was, so the story goes, drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine.

These are the facts, as much as they are known, of the build-up to Shakespeare’s Richard III. The play opens with a time-altered amalgam of the events. The body of Henry VI, who had died in 1471, is being borne in an open coffin through a London street in Act I Scene II; Clarence, murdered in 1478, in the play is dispatched in macabre style in Act I Scene IV; the news of the death of King Edward IV, who died in 1483, is announced by his distraught widow Queen Elizabeth in Act II Scene II.

It all amounts to a neatly contracted fulfilment of the objectives Gloucester had set out in the opening scene of the play. Only the last detail of the plan remains, in the ‘prophecy, which says that ‘G’/ Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be’.

Given the notoriety that the alleged murders of the ‘Princes in the Tower’ by Richard III had earned through the telling and retelling of the tale by Tudor chroniclers, the inclusion of the crime in the play must have had the play’s first audiences in thrall. King Edward’s two sons, Edward aged 12 and Richard, 9, were certainly lodged in the Tower in the summer of 1483, awaiting the coronation of the elder prince as Edward V. The coronation never took place, because they were declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament. Gloucester was duly crowned as the rightful heir. But did he feel insecure as long as his brother’s children lived? History does not relate, but Shakespeare was in no doubt. The new-crowned king in Act IV tells his fixer Buckingham:

Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead;

And I would have it suddenly performed

He does, too, turning to the unscrupulous Tyrrel for the deed when Buckingham demurs. When Tyrrel reports that the princes have been killed, Richard demands only that he has seen the bodies for himself and how they have been disposed of. In what might well be a nod to the unsolved mystery of the princes’ disappearance, Tyrell replies:

The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them;

But how or in what place I do not know.

By this stage in the play, King Richard has found himself in a vortex of evil. It is a classic dramatic device. Murders are committed in turn to tie up the loose ends from the preceding outrage. And those who commit the crimes on the King’s behalf are themselves revolted by their own compliance. As Tyrrel describes the smotherring of the princes:

The tyrannous and bloody deed is done.

The most arch of piteous massacre

That ever yet this land was guilty of.

While Shakespeare shamelessly invented Richard III’s physical deformities, and entirely imagined his motivations (how could he have guessed at them?), what he does not have to conjure is the willingness of those who serve power to do what they are told. The wickedness portrayed in this very dark play is wholly authentic. But it is not Richard’s assumed evil influence over those around him that convinces, it is the ready acquiescence of his functionaries. This obedience even extends, with genuine conviction, to Lady Anne, who agrees to marry Richard in spite of his confession to the killing of those she had loved most.

Richard III is a bravura demonstration of the infinite will in the human spirit to do the wrong thing if ordered or persuaded to do so by a sufficiently charismatic manipulator. The play could easily be adapted, fairly or otherwise, to any number of monsters from history, and certainly to the murderous dictators of our own times, from Hitler and Stalin to Saddam Hussein and Colonel Gadaffi.

In his time, Shakespeare chose Richard III for this role. He was the last Plantagenet king, and as such a convenient head on which to place a tyrant’s crown – which then, at least in the mythology of the period, was picked up from the field of battle at Bosworth by Henry Tudor, Duke of Richmond, grandfather of the sovereign to whom Shakespeare owed obedience, Queen Elizabeth I.

Anxiety to please this patron, and her ever-vigilant, acquiescing courtiers, might have encouraged the author to paint King Richard blacker than black, but reading the play now, the portrayal of wickedness often looks over the top, as if Shakespeare is veering dangerously close to satire. It is in the manner of a pantomime baddie that Richard hisses in the great opening soliloque ‘I am determined to prove a villain’. And his complaint that he is so ugly that dogs bark at him seems as likely to elicit raucous laughter as it is disgust or sympathy. And does the playwright really expect us to believe that evil schemers planning treason and murder stand in public streets talking to themselves about it?

Shakespeare’s intentions, happily, remain as obscure of those of his villain. He has left us a great play with unending possibilities, and a gift to actors of every generation. Shakespeare’s contemporary Richard Burbage, the greatest actor of the day, is said to have taken the role in the first performance in 1591, and Edmund Kean’s run at the Drury Lane theatre in 1814 has gone down in stage history. But William Hazlitt, a great critic of the time, was equivocal. ‘When we first saw this celebrated actor in the part, we thought he sometimes failed from an exuberance of manner, and dissipated the impression of the general character by the variety of his resources,’ he wrote. ‘To be complete, his delineation of it should have more solidity, depth, sustained and impassioned feeling, with somewhat less brilliancy, with fewer glancing lights, pointed transitions, and pantomimic evolutions.

‘The Richard of Shakespeare is towering and lofty; equally impetuous and commanding; haughty, violent, and subtle; bold and treacherous; confident in his strength as well as in his cunning; raised high by his birth, and higher by his talents and his crimes; a royal usurper, a princely hypocrite, a tyrant and a murderer of the house of Plantagenet.

... but I was born so high,

Our aery buildeth in the cedar’s top,

And dallies with the wind and scorns the sun.

‘The idea conveyed in these lines,’ Hazlitt continued, ‘is never lost sight of by Shakespeare, and should not be out of the actor’s mind for a moment. The restless and sanguinary Richard is not a

Reviews for King Richard III

[lisapeet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[gbill_7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Shakespeare may have embellished the historical truth a bit when he wrote Richard III, but he certainly knew a good story when he saw it. The War of the Roses between Lancaster and York from 1455-1485 following over 100 hundred years of warfare with France ripped the country apart and led to cruel murders on both sides. Many vied for the throne or to be an inch closer to it, and blind ambition was the order of the day from women and men alike. One of the horrifying outcomes was the famous ‘Princes in the tower’, with Richard III imprisoning his older brother Edward IV’s children to take the throne after Edward had died, and then disposing of them. Shakespeare wrote the play a little over a hundred years later, around the year 1592, and the quality is impressive given its over 400 years old today. He painted Richard a bit blacker than he actually was, most notably making him the killer of middle brother George (Duke of Clarence), when it was actually Edward who had him drowned in a barrel of wine. In this story the will to power is concentrated into the character of Richard, who gains the throne but only after having done so many evil deeds that he is hated and isolated. His ambition starts with “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York” at the outset of the play, and ends with him tormented with a guilty conscience and then killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 after screaming “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”, thus ushering in Henry VII as the first Tudor king. The tragic irony is that Richard has brought about his own destruction by destroying others.Quotes; just this one on man’s inhumanity:Richard: Lady, you know no rules of charity, which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.Anne: Villain, thou know’st nor law of God nor man. No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.Richard: But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

[adaorhell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Richard, you hero, you villain. I am not sure how I feel about this play, I might have done a bad reading of it originally. But I am enraptured with Richard III any way. He did great things for the poor, he murdered children. He was the last King to die on the battlefield, he wasn't a legitimate King anyway. Sly, cunning, vicious and ambitious, Richard III is coming close to taking Macbeth away as my favourite Shakespeare.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The true tragedy of this piece is that Richard was almost certainly falsely accused of doing away with his nephews. But as theatre, Richard III exudes a charismatic evil. Based on Tudor sources, Shakespeare wrote for the day. And the day required that the Plantagenets be hung out to dry. The depiction of Edward IV as a lecherous, over-eating, self-indulgent monarch was probably valid though. An interesting piece of theatre, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for poor Richard.

[stillatim · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Am I the only person who thinks Richard is kind of sympathetic? Seriously, *every* other person in the play is a moron. I've never been comfortable with Nietzsche's whole 'the weak gang up to ruin the world by undermining the strong' nonsense, but as an analysis of this book? Pretty good. Look, everyone in this play is morally repulsive. The difference between them and RIII is that the king's much smarter. He moves the pieces around the board pretty well. And for that he's the greatest villain the world has ever seen? I don't get it.

As for this edition (most recent Arden), it's got a very well-written introduction that provides a lot of background information; maybe too much background information. I would have liked a bit more interpretation. Same thing with the annotation, which was very heavy on the manuscript-variations but a bit light on historical information. But thankfully no fatuous 'thematic' interpretation stuff at all.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

1592-93, enorm populair; flamboyante persoonlijkheid, gezicht van het kwaadPrachtige opening met monoloog door Gloucester waarin hij de innerlijke drijfveer voor zijn slechtheid blootlegt (ik ben niet geschikt voor vrede, rust en hoofse liefde”).Nogal rauw en bloeddorstig, geen spoor van moraal. Confrontatie met dame Anna: vurig, maar snelle ommezwaai na stroperige ode over haar schoonheid. Mengeling van brutale verbale confrontaties en cynische humor (de 2 beulen die een beetje last hebben van hun geweten als ze Clarence moeten doden); subliem woordenspel tussen de jonge prins van York en Gloster en Buckingham (III,1).Verschillende scènes met klagende vrouwen. ’s Nachts voor de slag: knagend geweten van RichardSlotpleidooi van Richmond en consecratie van de TudurdynastieImpressie: sterk, “fierce”, maar de vrouwenstukken zijn het subtielst.

[lyzadanger · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My first Shakespeare history: I've been avoiding them for years. I care too much about keeping everything straight: the four characters named Richard, the handful of Edwards, the nobility calling each other by their titles sometimes, their Christian names other times. And then titles will change. And I care about the events and the lineages and I manage to get all wound up and muddled and frustrated.Of course it's better if you just read it as a play. And for that, it still has a profoundly different tone than the tragedies or the comedies. There's a lot of vitriol here. Not a lot of subtlety. Strong female characters. A LOT of characters. Children.It wasn't my favorite. It wasn't my least favorite. It was more of another notch in my complete-works-of-the-Bard-read stick.

[dypaloh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Settling back in my chair to think about what I’ve read . . .Remember when, in Patton, George C. Scott exclaims, “Rommel, you magnificent bastard. I read your book!”?It’s possible to imagine an unnamed candidate exclaiming in admiration after election to presidential office, “Shakespeare, you magnificent bastard. I did it like Richard III!” (Or possibly he’d say, “like Richard Three”).What might I mean?To begin with, Shakespeare has made this Richard III fellow so grotesquely grotesque that it’s hard to think how one might endure a play about him, and not a short play either. He hardly needed grotesqueness of body too. He is a pillar of grotesquerie. And it doesn’t help that he suffers from Asinine Distemper Syndrome.<SPOILER NOTICE: The discussion that follows is partially a synopsis. Several events in the play are revealed.>The action opens with Richard acquainting us with his newest plan: “I am determined to prove a villain.” In this he does not lie. It’s barely possible for his interest to be captured by any other ambition, whether he is capering in this play or in Shakespeare’s telling of the reign of King Henry VI. We immediately learn that he has laid plots to set his brother Clarence “in deadly hate” against his other brother who is, for the moment, king. Well, who’d have guessed? Every reader of the Henry VI saga, I’d say. Facing the predictability of it all, one is tempted to cry, “A hearse, a hearse! What boredom, bring a hearse!”Nonetheless, Richard surprises with how successfully he manipulates others to his ends when he is so minded. Having previously killed Lady Anne’s husband plus her father-in-law (Henry VI), he manufactures from these actions a romantic advantage. What though I killed her husband and her father?The readiest way to make the wench amendsIs to become her husbandIt takes some convincing but somehow the noble “wench” softens toward his intent and becomes his wife. Next an encounter with Margaret, Henry VI’s widow, who as a jewel of antagonistic behavior is almost a clone of Richard’s soul. Here Richard accomplishes something deft. While Margaret’s spite is obdurate—she resembles Richard greatly in capacity for distemper—Richard scores bonus points with the nobles witnessing their exchange. They go away impressed at his “virtuous and Christian-like” and prayerful manner. No matter that Richard has won their good opinion by feigning Christian conduct. Appositely, the Editor’s note here cites Milton’s Eikonoklastes: “The deepest policy of a tyrant hath ever been to counterfeit religious.” The reader can only shake his head.Later, in a scene similar to the wooing of his by now deceased first wife, Richard, having killed Queen Elizabeth’s two young sons, bids her intercede to persuade her daughter to marry him. When she complains, saying her sons are “Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves,” he rebuts “Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.”Swell guy. Still, the unapologetic Richard sways her. To her protest “Yet thou didst kill my children,” he replies: But in your daughter’s womb I bury them:Where in the nest of spicery, they will breedSelves of themselves, to your recomfiture.Crass modern translation: “Yeah, your sons are ****ing dead. You’ll feel better by setting it up so I can **** your daughter too.” So Elizabeth agrees. Give her credit. Richard had to pursue his goal patiently for 174 lines (believe me, that’s a lot of lines) before she gave consent.Just after Elizabeth leaves to bring Daughter the unexpected news, Richard brands her a “Relentless fool.” Nothing so arouses his contempt as giving in to what he wants. Nothing arouses his ire more than opposing what he wants. Richard, how in good conscience do you do the things you do? He kindly explains:For conscience is a word that cowards use,Devis’d at first to keep the strong in awe:Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.One feels sure even Socrates would fail to convince him otherwise.Settling back in my chair to think about what I’ve read . . . Well, perhaps you now imagine an unnamed candidate too. And that’s why you should read Richard III.

[the_awesome_opossum · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It took awhile to get into Richard III - it's set during/just after the War of the Roses, and there's a lot of politics going on that are pretty obscure now. However, reading it as a tragedy with a touch of modern thriller makes it awesome. Richard is brother to the sickly king, and a very respected military officer, but he craves more power and admiration than that. He has to work his way through most of his family and acquaintances though, picking them off one by one, to capture the crown. He's a master of manipulation and psychology, yet throughout the play we see Richard's own psyche and facades crumbling beneath the weight of this single-minded obsession. Wonderful, thrilling play that is completely worth the work to get through

[bell7_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Shakespeare's history of Richard III reads like a tragedy. Of course the tragic thing is that the hero is so despicable, yet it is hard to dislike him too much, he has such good lines. "Now is the winter of our discontent . . ." the play opens and the reader is swept up by the perfidy and creative conniving of Richard. As his plans thicken he seems to be succeeding, only to fail in the end as his apparent allies fail him and turn. Filled with some of the best poetry of the early Shakespeare this play is deservedly one of his most popular creations.

[delta351 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

By far the most evil character in any Shakespeare plays that I have read. Hard to keep track of all the Edward's and Richard's and the female characters. I think it is pretty tightly scripted, prob because it is mostly historically accurate. Sorry I waited so long to read this one

[frankjl_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Shakespeare's take on Richard III. Very dark historical play, but just a play. Mostly inaccurate historically though.Very long play, S's 2nd longest just behind Hamlet.

[francescaforrest · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was the most stagey of any Shakespeare play I've ever read--or at least the most stagey I remember. Richard comes out at the start and announces his evil intentions. Later, characters whisper asides to the audience while lying to their interlocutors on stage. And at the end, ghosts.

It was interesting, but the over-the-top villainry of Richard somehow left me a little cold. A small thing along the way that bugged me was the ease with which Richard won over female characters who hated and excoriated him. A little sweet talk, and they acquiesce. What?! Please. Way to give women a bad name, Bill!

[bookwoman247 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think that almost everyone knows Shakespeare's verson of the story of the monstrous King Richard III, how he plotted the murder of anyone who stood in the way of his gaining the crown of England. This was certainly not my first encounter with Shakespeare. I've read his work several times before. However, I seem to have missed the history plays, until now.I'm embarrassed to admit, that this is also the first time that I've felt the magic of Shakespeare. It's the first time I've been held in the thrall of the power of his words.I've always enjoyed his work, but I never understood what all the fuss was about. Now I get it.

[briony_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I never thought I would enjoy this as much as I did, and the Ian McKellen adaptation of this just makes it even better.

[kimmr_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've just seen the wonderful Kevin Spacey / Sam Mendes production which opened at the Old Vic this year and is on a world tour. An amazing production and a superlative performance by Spacey.

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

With the understanding that insulting the ruler's grandfather was a de-earring offense, and that all plays had to be run by the Lord Chamberlain for approval before publication or performance, what do you do? You slag the man the grandfather took the throne from. Safe move, Willy! And I've always been a richardian. I'm glad his corpse will at last come out from under the car park and be properly housed.I keep quoting the play, and have read it....oh, six times from beginning to end.

[tkcs-3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Josephine Tey book I just finished got me interested in Richard III. At the same time, I've been meaning to read some Shakespeare, and since I've never read The Tragedy of KR III it seems like a good place to start. I seldom read Shakespeare but I always enjoy it when I do. I remember loving a Shakespeare class at BYU. I took it summer term from Nan Grass, and some sessions we met in her family cabin in Provo Canyon--Vivian Park for those who know it. Great memories!

[coach_of_alva · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After reading and watching this play, I have now “heard” it. What I noticed, in this version, was that the effect of hearing was to level the players. Richard III is usually regarded as having one interesting character and many boring ones, and so being dependent on a show-stopping performance by the lead to make a performance watchable. Here, the lead actor, David Troughton, is good as the king but not domineering. Instead of ruining the performance, though, his refusal to chew scenery allows the other actors to bring their characters to life. Especially memorable are rages of a furious, dying Edward IV at the backbiting court that failed to protect his brother from himself and the lesson Queen Margaret gives Queen Elizabeth in the art of cursing. I was also happy to find this production unabridged.

[catherinestead · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great drama, a somewhat... um... flexible attitude to history, and scarcely a character alive by the end. There are the famous lines ("Now is the winter of our discontent"; "A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!") and some that really ought to be more famous ("fair Saint George,/ Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!"). Very entertaining.

[kaboomcju · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not a big fan of Shakespeare's history plays. See some of the film and stage adaptations of this play...they're more entertaining.

[amerynth · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It wasn't by design, but I managed to save a great play for my final Shakespare (because apocrypha be damned.) Richard III was one definitely one of my favorites.... great story, great dialog and great pacing, what more could you ask for in a play?The play tells the story of the nefarious Richard's rise to the throne and ultimate demise. He's an evil mastermind behind the deaths of kings and princes, and even those who supported his aims fall to his sword. This isn't one of Shakespare's subtler works, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[jcbrunner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Richard III, the tragedy about the Yorkist Götterdämmerung, is Shakespeare's second longest play. Laurence Olivier's 1955 film version clocks in at 161 minutes. Ian McKellen's 1995 film abridges Shakespeare's play too much, at 104 minutes. Richard III is anything but boring: Shakespeare piles murder upon murder at the feet of Richard III, some of which he clearly wasn't remotely responsible for. What is important to remember, though, is that Richard III kills for dynastic and political reasons. While Shakespeare highlights Richard's envy and discontent, the murders are politically necessary to open Richard's path to power. The tragedy not only requires the murders, each murder triggers the next until it is Richard's turn to die.Shakespeare endowed Richard with a wicked charm, memorable physical disabilities and a singular connection to the audience that lets one both roots for and against this evil man. Richard's dominance and centrality in the play is also its weakness: the other actors' light only shines for a few lines at a time. The other actors' roles never develop beyond types (grieving mother, opportunists, ...). The performance rests almost completely upon the central actor's misshapen shoulders and the absence of a medieval get-away car.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[mstrust · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Richard is brother to King Edward and George, Duke of Clarence. Both think he loves them, but Richard has two faces, one of loyalty and sweetness, the other is evil. Having gathered a few ambitious and unethical men around him, Richard is able to order the murder of both brothers, their sons and their loyal followers. He forces the widow of one of his victims to marry him, then chooses his own niece to be his next wife. For a long time, it is only the women in court, including Richard's mother, who recognize that he is evil.Gripping and exciting, Richard III is one of the great villains. I'd love to see this performed.