When re-reading this play last fall, I was struck by how Shakespeare emphasizes the movement of bodies. Most obvious, of course, is the movement of the main character. Physically disabled and with a limp, Shakespeare’s Richard moves differently than every other character in the play; his differences provoke negative comments throughout the text. Not only is Shakespeare the first author to portray the character with a limp, but Richard’s disabilities are also commented upon much less in the two other contemporary plays, The True Tragedy of Richard III and Legge’s Richardus Tertius. Shakespeare alters the tradition of Richard’s disabilities and repeatedly draws attention to them.
Second, there is the aided movement of characters, both dead and alive. The corpse of Henry VI is conveyed across the stage and begins to bleed; blood flows through “cold and empty veins.” The First Murderer has to drag Clarence’s body offstage. King Edward requires Hasting’s assistance to return to his chamber. Several characters move through the space on their way to execution, soon to become headless bodies. Hastings’ head, notably sans his body, appears on the stage.
Third is the introduction of new bodies in the fifth act: Shakespeare presents brand new characters late in the text. From the outset this seems like bad writing, but I think Shakespeare decidedly chose this approach rather than creating larger roles for fewer characters. He creates a world in which people constantly enter and exit the story.
Finally, there is the movement of the actors’ bodies. Depending on differences between the folio and quarto texts, there are up to 52 speaking roles. Shakespeare’s company of actors would probably have been slightly larger than ours, but they would have doubled (and tripled) roles, as our cast is doing. In small companies like ours and Shakespeare’s, the group is juggling a lot of roles between few people. Actors are constantly in motion, changing costumes, and entering and exiting the stage. I chose to do the play with as few actors as possible: ten, which is the greatest number of characters that appear on stage at any given time. I also cut only three small speaking roles from the play; you’ll see many characters in this production that are often removed by other directors. In keeping the cast small and thus bringing attention to the doubling, I am hoping that we will discover something about the magnitude of the world Shakespeare has created.
Heightening the doubling to this extreme also serves to support the inherent theatricality of the script. I would argue that Richard III is one of Shakespeare’s most rhetorical plays, perhaps only outdone by Richard II. The language, and its use of repetition, parallelism, antithesis, and other rhetorical devices, is incredibly self-conscious. To meet this play on its own terms, we must embrace its bold rhetoric and theatricality.
Richard III’s reliance on rhetoric and theatricality must be due in part to Shakespeare’s youth. Antony Sher quoted his director Bill Alexander describing the play thusly, “It is a young writer’s play. It is a young director’s production. It is a young Shakespearian actor’s performance. It has the crude vitality all of that implies.” Alexander’s observation is astute. After all, Richard III was only 32 when he died. Looking at the historical events, Richard is only 19 at the opening of the play. (Shakespeare conflates time a great deal in this play.) Thank you for joining me, the cast, and Travis Blumer, our young Richard, as we explore and enjoy the crude vitality of Shakespeare’s Richard III.
