Richard III the Play, Richard

Richard III

The play, Richard III, by William Shakespeare, is both a tragedy and a history on the short career of the last medieval English king, believed to have been written between 1591 and 1593 and first published in 1602 (Wikipedia 2006, Library of Congress Cataloguing 2000). Shakespeare's play depicts Richard and his "reign of terror" both unflatteringly and beyond historical accuracy. For entertainment purposes, Shakespeare presents Richard as extremely villainous in order to achieve maximum theatrical effect and in pursuit of a similar and traditional presentation of Richard III by writers previous to Shakespeare. Shakespeare could have drawn details and insights from the work of Sir Thomas More, "History of King Richard III," which was not a history but a highly colored literary account of both accurate and invented details. Shakespeare's true main source was his own imagination for his play of which more than a third consists of invented speeches. It is his attempt to adapt history into theater. Richard is a jealous and ugly hunchback who puts his Clarence out of the way to his succession to the throne ruled by their brother Edward IV. Richard marries the Lady Anne and eliminates other obstacles to his ambition. He executes those who resist his moves and he becomes king.

As rebellion mounts, Richard becomes paranoid and loses his popularity. As the rebels congregate to battle him at the Bosworth Field, Richard is visited by the ghosts of those whom he had killed. He goes through remorse in the final hours and repents but it is too late (Wikipedia, Library of Congress Cataloguing).

Richard III Society's version is set in England in the 1930s with the end of the Civil War and the enthronement of Edward and the jealousy of his hunchback and ugly youngest brother, Richard (MGM 2006). It stars Ian McKellen as Richard III, a skilled seducer of women and charmer and leader of men. Similar to the character of Shakespeare's play, this movie's Richard focuses all his skills in the attainment of a cherished dream ambition, the throne of England. As in Shakespeare's play, this Richard seduces and eventually marries Lady Anne and realizes his destructive plot through the help of the Duke of Buckingham and James Tyrell, his assassin. He eliminates his older brother Clarence, who stands on his way to the throne, by murdering him in the Tower of London. Again similarly to Shakespeare's play, King Edward falls ill and dies within days. Richard also eliminates the Protector and makes himself the Protector of the under-aged Prince of Wales, the new heir. He locks this under-aged prince in the Tower. He also removes the Prime Minister, Lord Hastings, and thus begins his reign of terror, similarly in Shakespeare's play. With all the forces on his side, he is crowned King Richard III of England. The difference in this movie version is that the young prince and his younger brother are murdered in the Tower along with Richard's wife, Lady Anne. But similar to Shakespeare's play, opposition develops under the young Henry Richmond in this movie version and builds an army to invade Richard's kingdom. Richard's friends soon get disenchanted and leave him and give their support to Richmond instead. Richard loses even the daughter of Queen Elizabeth, who marries Richmond rather than Richard. These superior forces and a bad conscience overwhelm him and he thrusts himself into the battlefield, declaring that good has not conquered evil (MGM).

In the movie version, "Looking for Richard," Al Pacino creates, directs and stars as Richard III's obsession for power, lust and betrayal through the streets of New York to the birthplace of Shakespeare to an emotionally charged production of Richard III (Richard III Society 1996) it is a presentation of Shakespeare with an untraditional format more accessible to the modern audience and with which this modern audience can relate better. The cast includes Estelle Parsons as Queen Margaret, Alec Baldwin as Clarence, Kevin Spacey as Buckingham, Winona Ryder as Lady Anne and Aidan Quinn as Richmond. Al Pacino also puts in the enthusiasm and help of Sir John Gielgud, Sir Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh, Vanessa Redgrave, James Earl Jones and Kevin Kline in an attempt at making everyone enjoy Shakespeare and his tales truly timeless in exploring human nature. This version is different from the first two interpretations in that Al Pacino and his actors needed to break down the barriers, which render Shakespeare's history complicated and intimidating. Al Pacino allows his viewer to go behind the scenes and witness the actual process of acting. The heavier aspects of the play are made mild by informal shots of actors dealing with their roles in either a comic or heated forum. Al Pacino's methods of analysis are insightful, amusing and engrossing. He transcends the barrier between actors and their audience as he stands in London's legendary Globe Theater and the halls of New York City's Cloisters Museum (Richard III Society).

It illustrates how the actors move in and out of character through their struggles, debates and revelations about the play (Richard III Society 1996). At the same time, Al Pacino also acquires and measures public opinion about Richard III through the streets of New York. Some did not know Richard III at all, but some said that Al Pacino helped them get instructed in the art of feeling blending the day-to-day life of his actors with ordinary people, thus achieving a very different Shakespeare. The main goal of the project is to reach an audience, which will not normally participate in this kind of language or world. It took many years to complete the film. The creator and director remained focused to the extent of a failure to work on other movies. In venturing into this movie version, Pacino first realized that Shakespeare could actually be de-constructed. He and his observer are afforded the work's historical background, the methods used by Shakespeare to develop that portrait of a tyrant and a clarification into the true definition of "iambic pentameter." He and his observer or audience can involve themselves in a part without completely "demystifying" it by presenting the play itself and in a period costume of the time of one of England's most notorious kings (Richard III Society).