LEARNING RESOURCES SYNOPSIS 2 QUICK FACTS 3 PERFORMANCE HISTORY 4 SOURCES AND SHAKESPEARE SHAPING HISTORY 5 HISTORY OF WOMEN PLAYING MALE ROLES IN SHAKESPEARE 6 CHARACTERS 8 THEMES 12 FROM THE DIRECTOR 17 DESIGN 18 OTHER RESOURCES 21 ACTIVITIES 23 EXERCISE ONE 23 EXERCISE TWO 24 EXERCISE THREE 25 EXERCISE FOUR 26

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 1 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools RICHARD 3 SYNOPSIS England is enjoying a period of peace after a long civil war between the royal families of York and Lancaster, in which the Yorks were victorious and Henry VI was murdered (by Richard). King Edward IV is newly declared King, but his youngest brother, Richard (Gloucester) is resentful of Edward’s power and the general happiness of the state. Driven by ruthless ambition and embittered by his own deformity, he initiates a secret plot to take the throne by eradicating anyone who stands in his path. Richard has King Edward suspect their brother Clarence of treason and he is brought to the Tower by Brackenbury. Richard convinces Clarence that Edward’s wife, Queen Elizabeth, and her brother Rivers, are responsible for this slander and Hastings’ earlier imprisonment. Richard swears sympathy and allegiance to Clarence, but later has him murdered. Richard then interrupts the funeral procession of Henry VI to woo Lady Anne (previously betrothed to Henry VI’s deceased son, again killed by Richard). He falsely professes his love for her as the cause of his wrong doings, and despite her deep hatred for Richard, she is won and agrees to marry him. Richard creates conflict with Queen Elizabeth’s family, accusing them of Clarence’s demise. Queen Margaret, a long sufferer of Richard’s vengeance warns them all against him. Edward VI, now quite unwell, tries to make peace between the parties, yet Richard interrupts them to report that Clarence is dead. Feeling responsible, Edward laments that no one pleaded for Clarence, and mournfully recounts how they fought valiantly together on the battlefield. In his grief, Edward’s illness worsens and he dies. The Duchess of York and Queen Elizabeth mourn for Edward. Rivers counsels Elizabeth to have her son, Prince Edward V, crowned as King. Richard and Buckingham plot to remove the Prince who is journeying home. Richard has the Prince’s traveling companions Rivers and Grey imprisoned and later executed (at the hands of Ratcliffe). Queen Elizabeth flees with her youngest son, but her actions are condemned. The Prince is retrieved and Richard holds the two young heirs lodged in the Tower. Awaiting Edward V’s coronation, Catesby tries to establish Hastings’ loyalty to Richard, but Hastings rejects his claim to the throne. Richard, now Lord Protector, discusses Edward’s coronation with the Bishop of Ely. When Hastings arrives, Richard names him a traitor and he is beheaded. Buckingham and Richard feign bereavement to the Lord Mayor over the loss of their ally, and convince him of Hastings’ guilt, gaining support of the people. Richard then claims the illegitimacy of Edward IV and his children to the crown. Richard is offered the crown: he feigns rejection but then accepts it. The Duchess laments birthing Richard and Anne shares her regret in marrying Richard, and her reluctance to take the role of Queen. Buckingham, Richard’s closest ally, is unwilling to assist him in his plot to kill the young Princes. Richard names him a traitor and Buckingham eventually deserts him. Richard enlists Tyrell to arrange the murders of Buckingham, the young Princes, and his wife Anne. Meanwhile Richmond, a descendant of a secondary arm of the Lancaster family, emerges as a challenger to the throne and noblemen quickly defect to support him. Queen Margaret, Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of York all grieve for their lost husbands and children at the hands of Richard. Margaret is pleased to see others befall the same destruction as herself and at last resolves to go to France. Richard then convinces Elizabeth to accept his proposal to her daughter, yet she manages to forestall him whilst secretly promising young Elizabeth to Richmond. Ratcliffe informs Richard that Richmond is approaching, and messengers report uprising and rebellion. Now in the Bosworth Field, both Richard and Richmond have set up opposing camps. As Richard sleeps, ghosts of his victims visit him and express support for Richmond. The following morning Richmond invades England. Richard is killed in the battle and Richmond is crowned King Henry VII. Promising a renewed era of peace for England, the new king is betrothed to young Elizabeth, uniting the warring houses of Lancaster and York.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 2 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools RICHARD 3 QUICK FACTS

Shakespeare’s second longest play after Hamlet, Richard 3 is grouped in the First Folio with the histories and completes Shakespeare’s first Tetralogy with Henry VI (Parts 1-3). Although first published by Andrew Wise in 1597 in quarto form, the play is believed to have been written no later than 1592 as it is said to have influenced Marlowe (Edward II), who died in 1593. At its time of conception, Richard 3 was the longest ever stage play written in English, a title only to be trumped by Hamlet in 1601. The play is believed to have been hugely popular in its day, due to its numerous publications, and is still considered the most beloved of its genre. It contains the longest soliloquy in the entire Shakespeare canon and the most soliloquies in a single act – Richard has five soliloquies in the first three scenes. It also contains possibly the most famous line that Shakespeare did not write “Off with his head; so much for Buckingham”. The play has 52 named characters, the most of any in Shakespeare’s canon and next to Hamlet, Richard has the most lines of any Shakespeare character, numbering 1145. Despite Richard’s infamous villainy, the play is deliberately and notably non-violent. Whilst Richard is responsible for the deaths of eleven characters, two of those being children, they all die or are killed off stage and out of sight, whilst Richard himself is the only character to fall to his fate before the audience. Outnumbering any other Shakespearean play Richard 3 was published in quarto form six times before the first folio was produced in 1623: five of those being within Shakespeare’s lifetime. However, unlike the Folio, the quarto editions which often list the play as a tragedy are notably shorter, and believed to have been produced by Shakespeare’s actors through memorial reconstruction and are thus considered of lesser authority.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 3 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools RICHARD 3 PERFORMANCE HISTORY

There is no record of the first performance of Richard 3, although it was most likely first viewed in late 1592 or early 1593, with Richard Burbage playing the title role. The earliest recorded performance was in 1633 for Charles I in honour of Queen Henrietta’s birthday. The play was hugely popular and Richard’s famous cry ‘A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse’ (Act 5, Scene 4) was not only repeated in different scenarios of plays for the next 100 years but became a ‘popular catchphrase on the streets of London. Colley Cibber’s adaptation of Richard 3 was the most successful during the restoration and was staged for the next 150 years until 1845 when Shakespeare’s version returned to popularity. Notable stage performances over the years include the famed Edmund Keen in Drury Lane in 1814, in which he claimed his performance was so moving ‘he could not feel the stage under him.’ African American actor James Hewlett took on the role in 1821 as did silent film actor John Barrymore in 1920. Interestingly, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, actor John Wilkes Booth, slayed Richard whilst making his stage debut as Richmond at the Charles Street Theatre in Baltimore in 1855. In recent years, Richard has been played by such acclaimed actors as Ralph Fiennes, Peter Dinklage and Kenneth Branagh. The two best-known film versions of Richard 3 star Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen in the title role. Olivier played Richard on stage for many years during the 1940s before making a film version in 1955. McKellen’s film was directly based on a stage production he previously toured to sell-out crowds throughout Europe. It was famously set in a Nazi-esque England of the 1930s. McKellen wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation himself. The Al Pacino film Looking for Richard is a documentary of rehearsals of specific scenes from the play, and a meditation on the play’s significance. Pacino had played the role on stage 15 years earlier. In 2011, well-known film actor Kevin Spacey starred in an Old Vic production directed by Sam Mendes. The production toured the United States and even visited Australia. Spacey had played the role of Richard’s henchman, the Duke of Buckingham, in the Pacino film.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 4 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools RICHARD 3 SOURCES AND SHAKESPEARE SHAPING HISTORY

The principle source of information available to Shakespeare about Richard was Sir Thomas More’s History of King Richard III and the chronicle histories of Hall and Holinshed. Many believe the style of the play is artistically influenced by the Roman dramatist Seneca as it is equally as performative and presentational as his tragedies, presenting very little on-stage violence. In his biography, Peter Ackroyd argues that Shakespeare transcended his sources by not only combining their works in ‘fresh and unexpected ways’, but by reinventing the paths of human consciousness. In Richard III Shakespeare creates a melting pot of formal rhetoric, melodrama, comedy, prophecy and sexuality, and all at a cracking pace. It is in this play that Shakespeare began to take true artistic control, took liberties with historical accuracy and, for the first time, allowed a central character to dominate the story. Shakespeare omits and invents, bringing Queen Margaret back from her banishment in France (from which she historically never returned), designing Richard’s wooing of Anne at her father-in-law’s funeral and drags scandalous events from 12 years earlier into Richard’s reign. Shakespeare’s portrait of Richard has endured over time and is often criticised by groups such as The Richard Society UK, for being Tudor propaganda that disables historical accuracy. In response, academic Marjorie Garber points out that just as Shakespeare’s depiction of Richard has hijacked and twisted accounts of this monarch, history itself is often a controlled and manipulated narrative. For Richard P. Wheeler, what these ‘Tudor apologists’ fail to see is that Shakespeare ‘presents a history stripped of all illusion and mythology, indeed, of all meaning, a cruel, amoral, impersonal history of manipulators and victims.’ In 2012 Richard III’s body was discovered under the Leicester Cathedral carpark as part of a collaboration between Al Pacino’s Looking for Richard Project and The Richard Society, allowing for a modern scientific study of his skeletal deformities and more research into this historical figure.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 5 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools HISTORY OF WOMEN PLAYING MALE ROLES IN SHAKESPEARE The journey of women on the Shakespeare stage, in any capacity, has no doubt been fraught with obstacles. Renaissance laws forbade women from writing or performing in playhouses, so the idea that women would one day speak the words of Macbeth or Hamlet was positively fantastical. The first woman to grace the stage is commonly believed to have been Margaret Hughes in Othello, in 1660. A British Library recently uncovered a prologue written to introduce her performance that clearly reveals the anxieties surrounding the issue of theatre and female morality; it promised the audience that the actress was ‘“As far from being what you call a Whore, As Desdemona injur’d by the Moor”. An uneasiness also surrounded the idea of ‘cross-dressing’. However, the first recorded instance of a woman playing a man actually pre-dates Margaret’s debut. In 1611 petty criminal Moll Cutpurse (Mary Frith), the famous London “Roaring Girl” who regularly dressed as a man, performed comical banter and songs on the lute at the Fortune Theatre in London. She was however later arrested for indecency. The renowned Sarah Bernhardt famously played the role of Hamlet in a French adaptation of the play in 1889, at the age of 55. Fellow actress Elizabeth Robins recalled Bernhardt’s performance after it played the Adelphi Theatre in London the following year, saying “Madame Bernhardt’s assumption of masculinity is so cleverly carried out that one loses sight of Hamlet in one’s admiration for the tour de force of the actress. She gives us… a spirited boy; doing it with an impetuosity, a youthfulness, almost childish.” Charlotte Cushman, considered one of the greatest American actresses during the 19th century and well known for her androgynous look, became internationally acclaimed for playing dramatic male roles on stage. She challenged Victorian notions of gender and was notorious as a powerful businesswoman. In 1839 she played Romeo to her sister Susan’s Juliet. In 1921 Danish actress Asta Nielsen presented one of the first 20th century ‘gender-bending’ Shakespeare performances in her 1921 silent film Hamlet. However, in this instance she played the Prince as a girl raised as a boy in order to preserve family lineage. The premise was considered controversial, yet the film proved to be a box-office success attracting a global audience. In more recent times: Fiona Shaw took on the role of Richard II in Deborah Warner’s 1995 production of the play. Feedback was mixed, with The Sunday Telegraph brandishing it “A disastrous performance” but The Independent praised it as “deliberately uncomfortable and compelling”. Kathryn Hunter played the title role in an all-female production of Richard III at the newly constructed Shakespeare’s Globe in 2003. Her interpretation of the character was critically acclaimed as ‘triumphant’ and humorous and many stated that they simply forgot they were watching a woman playing a man. Hunter has also taken on other male roles in Shakespeare such as the Fool in King Lear (2010) and Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2013). Ashley McGuire played Falstaff in the Donmar’s all-female production of Henry IV in 2014. When interviewed by The Guardian she stated, “As a woman, I never expected to play Falstaff – but that meant I didn’t feel daunted by the part. You’re not following in anyone’s footsteps. That’s quite freeing.” Maxine Peake impressed audiences playing Hamlet at Manchester’s Royal Exchange in 2014. The roles of Polonius, Rozencrantz and The Gravedigger were also played by women in this production. On approaching the role Peake said: “Sometimes, as an actress, there have been male roles where I’ve thought, I could do that, I could get my head into that. Just because I haven’t got the appropriate genitalia doesn’t mean that I can’t understand that”. In 2009 Bell Shakespeare presented an all-female cast of The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Marion Potts. Jeanette Cronin played the role of Petruchio and was applauded by critics as having “all the feline, febrile sexiness and mischief of a young Mick Jagger.”

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 6 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools Left to Right: Margaret Hughes, Sarah Bernhardt, Charlotte Cushman, Asta Nielsen, Fiona Shaw, Kathryn Hunter, Ashley McGuire, Maxine Peake, Jeanette Cronin.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 7 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools RICHARD 3 CHARACTERS YORKISTS Gloucester, Richard III ‘What do I fear? my selfe? There’s none else by.’ Richard is the second son of the Duke of York and brother to Edward IV and Clarence. When the play opens he is the Duke of Gloucester and is later crowned King before being swiftly overthrown. A physically deformed, ambitious and somewhat embittered character, Richard reflects the Vice of the early morality play, and even calls himself so: ‘the formal Vice, Iniquity’ (Act 3, Scene 1) He is also considered to be drawn from Machiavellian traditions, something Shakespeare would have been well versed in. Richard is the consummate performer and a calculated hypocrite, who can ‘frame his face to all occasions’. (Henry VI, Part 3) Shakespearean commentator George Steevens praised the role in 1793 for its variety; to him, Shakespeare’s Richard played ‘the hero, the lover, the statesman, the buffoon, the hypocrite, the hardened and the repentant sinner’. Often deemed a pre- cursor to the infamous Iago, Richard is Shakespeare’s first attempt at the anti-hero as the central figure. Richard is constantly defined by his physicality. He is described by himself and other characters as a ‘lump of foul deformity’, a ‘poisonous bunchback’d toad’, sent into the world ‘scarce half made up’ and born with ‘teeth’. He accepts isolation as an innate feature of his being, and declares in his opening soliloquy that he resents those around him. Richard claims that he is determined to play the ‘villain’ because he has no ‘delight to pass away the time’, yet it is unclear whether his deformity is the cause of his treachery or simply a mask he uses to excuse it. Like Iago, his audience confessions are questionable, but unlike Iago his motives are clear, and this ‘clarity of motive empowers him’ (Siemon, 2009). Richard appears to be deeply suspicious of women and engages with them for no other reason than his own gain. Richard shows no sign of remorse for his actions until he is confronted by the ghosts of his victims the night before the Battle of Bosworth and his final demise. In Shakespeare’s prior trilogy of Henry VI, Richard plays the role of the fighter and military instigator, brought in to provoke the Lancastrians. Here he appears to believe strongly in his father’s right to the throne and honours this and their relationship above all. In the Henry trilogy he is responsible for the deaths of Somerset, Henry VI himself, and Henry’s son and heir, but his most volatile relationship is with Margaret and the animosity continues into Richard 3. Most notably, after the death of York, Richard begins to dominate the trilogy in action and text. His infectious villainy forces events to orbit around him and here he expresses his ultimate skill of being able to ‘smile and murder whiles [he] smiles’ (Act 3, Scene 2). In Richard 3 he thrusts his way into the title role and we observe him go from hungry watchdog to astute orator and manipulator. In his introduction to the Arden edition of James Seimon points out that because Richard is limited physically he learns to achieve status through manipulation and performance rather than brute strength and physical presence. King Edward Edward is the eldest son of the Duke of York, husband of Queen Elizabeth, and the new reigning monarch. He is ageing and of ill-health and due to his ‘lusty’ and sinful past. He is now trying to create and maintain a ‘united league’ and ‘peace on Earth’ (Act 2, Scene 1) between Elizabeth’s and his own family. Like most characters in the play he is trusting of Richard, and which leads him to be hoodwinked into ordering the death of his brother Clarence for Richard’s secret gain. After his brother’s death, Edward shares remembrances of Clarence protecting him in the battlefield where he lay ‘frozen almost to death’ and laments fears of his own condemnation, ‘Oh God, I fear thy justice will take hold of me’ (Act 2, Scene 1). This loss and regret for his brother’s death, appears to hasten Edward’s own death, despite his illness. Later in the play, Edward’s children are accused of being illegitimate by Richard, as he was believed to have had a secret union prior to his marriage to Elizabeth. Clarence The third son of the Duke of York and brother to Edward IV and Richard. He first appears in Henry VI Part 3, where he mocks his brothers wooing of Lady Grey, defects against his brothers to join forces with Warwick and is described as the ‘quicksand of deceit’ (Act 5, Scene 4). Realising he does not want ‘ruinate’ (Act 5, Scene 1) his father’s house he returns support to Edward, proclaims Warwick a mortal foe and joins Richard in the stabbing of Margaret’s son. In Richard 3, Clarence is framed and later murdered at the hand of Richard as he stands in his way to succession of the throne. Although it is not discussed in the play, Richard’s treatment of Clarence and Edward’s distrust is somewhat justified due to his prior treason. Clarence is trusting of his brother Richard and openly accepts and believes his offer of assistance. When locked in the tower he is consumed by fearful dreams of his past sins: they plague his soul and make him believe he is in fact in ‘hell’ or ‘the Kingdom of perpetual night’ (Act 1, Scene 4).

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 8 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools Young Prince Edward The eldest son of Kind Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth, and nephew to Richard. Intelligent and precocious, he begins the play as the rightful heir to the throne and is therefore a hindrance to Richard’s plot for the crown. He is initially abroad in France and travels back to England at his mother’s request, due to the death of his father. His companions Rivers and Gray are captured and later killed. Richard then places the Prince in the Tower for his supposed protection. Despite his age he rejects any claim that his mother’s brother and allies were unfaithful, ‘God keep me from false friends; but they were none’, and alludes to Richard of his mistrust of him, ‘I hope I need not fear’. (Act 3, Scene 1) The Prince’s claim to the crown is then labeled illegitimate and his murder is arranged by Richard. Duchess of York Widow of the late Duke of York and mother of Edward, Clarence and Richard. It is fair to say that her pain and loss outweighs all others, losing three generations of kin. She claims so in Act 2, saying ‘Was never mother had so dear a loss’, yet still offers her mother’s heart and comfort, ‘I am your sorrow’s nurse, and I will pamper it’. (Act 2, Scene 2) As Richard’s villainy progresses beyond belief, in Act 4 the Duchess regretfully recalls his birth – ‘thou camest on earth to make the earth my hell’. She wishes that she had strangled Richard in her ‘accursed womb’, and utterly disowns him stating that she ‘rue the hour that ever he was born’, and curses him to ‘die by God’s just ordinance’. (Act 4, Scene 4)

NEW ROYALTY Queen Elizabeth Elizabeth is a widow, who was wooed and wed by Edward IV in the earlier trilogy, becoming Queen of England. She is a member of the Woodville family, considered somewhat lowly and unsuitable for her position, and was originally of Lancastrian connection. Despite Richard’s attack on the Woodville’s loyalty and Elizabeth’s acknowledgment that he envies her ‘advancement’ (Act 2, Scene 1), she still addresses him as ‘Brother’ and maintains allegiance to him, rejecting Margaret’s initial curse. She encounters great loss over the course of the play at the hand of Richard. Firstly, her husband falls with an illness hastened by Richard pressing him with unjustified guilt, and thus loses her position as Queen – ‘I’ll join with black despair against my soul and to myself become an enemy’. She then endures the capture and imprisonment of her sons, and pleads with the personified Tower and its ‘ancient stones’ to use her ‘baby well’ (Act 4, Scene 1). Her sons are then renounced as illegitimate heirs, and their murder is arranged by Richard. Richard’s assumes success over Elizabeth in wooing of her daughter, however she postpones his proposal and lives to see her daughter become the Queen of England, thus proving Richard’s account of her as a ‘shallow changing women’ to be a drastic misjudgment. Rivers Rivers is brother to Queen Elizabeth and a representative of the Woodville family. When we meet him in Act 1, Scene 3 he shows unwavering faith in divine rule and loyalty to Edward IV and Richard stating, ‘We follow’d then our lord, our lawful king: so should we you, if you should be our King’, and thus could be deemed too trusting and naive. He trusts that King Edward will regain his health and believes Richard’s pardons to be ‘a virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion’ (Act 1, Scene 3). Rivers is easily fooled, captured and murdered at Pomfret, blundering the delivery of the Princes safely to his sister.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 9 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools LANCASTRIANS Queen Margaret In Richard 3 we meet Margaret as a cursing, resentful, aged widow of Henry VI. A woman who has lost all: son, husband and rule. After the battle of Tewkesbury, (at the end of the trilogy) Margaret was historically imprisoned and released to France on payment of ransom. In Richard 3, she survives and functions as the chorus or a symbolic figure, lamenting the losses of the House of Lancaster. She inhabits a sort of moral and resentful purgatory and ceases to leave the court until she instils strength in her younger counterpart, Queen Elizabeth. Her curse in the opening act is almost a prologue, laying out the events of the play, ‘The time will come when thou shalt wish for me to help thee curse that poisonous bunchback’d toad’ (Act 1, Scene 3). Once she has fulfilled Elizabeth’s request in Act 4, Scene 5, ‘teach me how to curse mine enemies’ she retires, but not without disclosing that these courtly woes quench her ‘hunger for revenge’ and somewhat bring her comfort – ‘These English woes will make me smile in France’ (Act 4, Scene 4). Lady Anne The widow of Margaret’s son Prince Edward (killed by Richard) and wife to Richard. She is the first woman we encounter in the play, at the funeral of her late father-in-law (also killed by Richard). Her grief-stricken state sets up the role of women in this play. She initially scorns Richard, denigrating him as a ‘lump of foul deformity’ (Act 1, Scene 2), but is eventually won over by his flattery and remorse, which appeals to her faith in moral reform and possible vanity. She agrees to marry him, but soon regrets that her ‘woman’s heart’ was so easily wooed, stating that since her marriage she has not spent ‘one hour in his bed’ or ‘enjoy’d the golden dew of sleep’. (Act 4, Scene 1) Richard eventually has her murdered, reporting ‘Anne my wife, hath bid this world goodnight’. (Act 4, Scene 2)

NOBLES AND CLERGY Hastings is a loyal and devoted Chamberlain of Henry IV and supporter of the Yorkists. As a victim of the workings of the Woodvilles he foolishly places his faith in Richard, openly accepting his supposed innocence. Hastings is devastated by Richard’s slaying of Queen Elizabeth’s family, ‘how they at Pomfret bloodily were butchered’, and his rejection of this proves his downfall. He is surprised when Richard so suddenly names him traitor and proclaims ‘Off with his head’, to which he laments ‘O bloody Richard! Miserable England!’ Tyrrel acts as a henchman for Richard and is responsible for organising the murder of the two young Princes, an act which he mournfully reports to the audience – ‘The tyrannous and bloody deed is done, the most arch of piteous massacre, that ever yet this land was guilty of.’ He is wise not to share his reservations with Richard, and offers quite a contrasting and clinical report of the deed – ‘Be happy then, my Lord, for it is done’. (Act 4, Scene 3) Ratcliffe is another loyal and chief supporter of Richard. He is responsible for the deaths of Rivers, Grey and Lord Hastings and in attendance with Richard until the eve of the Battle of Bosworth. Duke of Buckingham is a skillful politician and a kinsmen and supporter of Richard. Holinshed described him as ‘easie to handle’, and for most of the play he serves Richard in this fashion, easily persuaded and quick to act without question. He masterfully assists most of Richard’s endeavours, including his pursuit of the crown, but is unwilling to permit the murder of the young Princes. Because of this, he loses Richard’s favour, flees, changes allegiances and then is captured and killed. Sir William Catesby is a proficient leader who remains a loyal advocate of and advisor to Richard throughout the play. Historically, he was integral to Richard ascending to the throne. In Richard 3 he is afforded the role of persuading Hastings to support Richard’s advancement, but when Hastings refuses, Catesby is well aware what fate will follow – ‘for they account his head upon a bridge’. He continues to advise Richard until the final moments of his death on the Bosworth fields – ‘Withdraw my Lord, I’ll help you to a horse’. (Act 5, Scene 4) The Bishop of Ely was historically a clerical politician and astute lawyer famously responsible for drafting bills against the Yorkists before they gained power and Edward IV’s ascension. In Richard 3 he appears with several Lords in the debate over the young Prince’s coronation date. Knowing his unwavering support for the Prince, Richard strategically removes Ely from the conversation by asking him to fetch strawberries from his garden, to allow for discussions of his usurpation. Later in the play Ely flees England, joining Richmond’s cause against Richard.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 10 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools TOWER Brakenbury is the lieutenant of the tower who allows for the killing of Clarence by two murderers. He is killed at the Battle of Bosworth.

RICHMOND’S FACTION Richmond The Earl of Richmond is Richard’s great enemy as he is the nearest male representative of the Lancastrians, and becomes the heroic figure of the play. He was the son of Owen Tudor and Katherine, the widow of Henry V. He escaped to France after the battle of Tewkesbury but continued to gain English support. Mostly positioned in France throughout the play, regarded as a place of refuge for those fleeing Richard’s tyranny, he finally leads a navy towards England and confronts and defeats Richard, ‘the unnatural tyrant’, at the battle of Bosworth. His newly appointed position as King Henry VII (Tudor) and his final words promise a peaceful future and to heal the wounds of the civil unrest between the royal houses of York and Lancaster; ‘The day is ours, the bloody Dog is dead. I will unite White Rose and the Red’.

LONDONERS The Lord Mayor plays the role of blindly accepting Richard’s claims against Hastings, and confirms and reports unto the citizens that he ‘deserved his death’. (Act 3, Scene 5) Scrivener is the public scribe assigned the task of writing the indictment for Hasting’s execution to be posted publically. He is well aware of Richard’s ‘ill dealings’ (Act 3, Scene 6) with the matter and functions in the text as a mouthpiece for the growing discontent and suspicion arising amongst the citizens.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 11 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools RICHARD 3 - THEMES NARCISSISM AND POWER Richard 3 constantly displays qualities often attributed to narcissism: an exaggerated sense of self-importance, and an excessive need for admiration, power and success. He engages in constant manipulation of those around him and, as academic Coppelia Kahn confirms, ‘he is unable to form or sustain bonds with others.’ Freud, who was famously fascinated with this historical and literary figure, claimed that ‘Richard is an enormously magnified representation of something we can all discover in ourselves. We all think we have reason to reproach nature and our destiny for congenital and infantile disadvantages; we all demand reparation for early wounds to our narcissism, our self-love.’ The ultimate question that arises when discussing Richard 3 is whether or not his sense of self or ‘self love’ was wounded. Is Richard motivated by ill-fate, ill-treatment and ‘cheated’ by nature as he claims? Or is he so steeped in grandiose that he musters up false sympathies in order to use to them to his own advantage? Coppelia Kahn believes there is absolutely a ‘realistic psychological dimension to Richard’s character’ and that his moral condition is partly born out of other characters’ treatment of him. Michael Niell argues that Richard ‘cannot know himself because he cannot love himself because he has never been loved.’ The Duchess of York’s treatment of Richard is extremely confronting, describing him as a ‘deformed lump’ that ‘strangled her accursed womb’ (Act 4, Scene 4) Such treatment is worth considering as the cause of Richard’s inner turmoil. Conversely, Richard claims in his opening soliloquy that he is not ‘made to court an amorous looking glass’ (Act 1, Scene 1), yet just as Narcissus couldn’t help but spy his reflection in the lake, Richard in no way shies away from his own figure. He rather engages with it and after successfully wooing Lady Anne he quickly translates his ‘ill design’ to ‘a proper man’, and says he should ‘be at charges for a looking glass’ and hire tailors to ‘adorn’ his body. (Act 1, Scene 2) Marjorie Garber believes that Richard is uneasy in a state of peace, when the ‘bruised arms are hung up’ (Act 1, Scene 1), as peace represents something definitive or completed. Richard will never be so, as he is, by his own admission, ‘unfinished’ and ‘scarce half made up’. He will always be in a state of searching for more, a classic trait of the narcissist. Actor Mark Rylance sees Richard’s actions as a result of boredom, a behaviour inherent in someone unsatisfied. He believes it is this restlessness and need to dispel ‘boredom’ that makes Richard so interesting to the audience; they know he will never stop. Whilst playing the title role at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2012, Rylance discussed how he felt Richard was in fact a narcissist, but not a psychopath, and that the difference was important. Rylance supports Freud’s notions, believing that Richard’s highly self-interested behaviour results from an immense ‘self-pity’ that mainly stems from his relationships with women, his mother in particular. Academic Tina Packer supports this idea of restlessness, stating that Richard simply revels in the idea of advancement and the act of evil and is actually not interested in the responsibilities of power, and thus fails to maintain it. She notes that it takes Richard ‘twenty years to get his crown, but only two to lose it.’ Richard proclaims in Henry VI, Part 3, ‘How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown’ (Act 1, Scene 2), but perhaps he is more interested in the process rather than reaching the final finished product, because in fact he will never be satisfied.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 12 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools DEFORMITY AND ISOLATION In the opening soliloquy of Richard 3, Shakespeare foregrounds Richard’s body as a direct motivation for his shrewd political bloodiness: 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: And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain. (Act 1, Scene 1)

In fact, most characters in the play cannot criticise Richard’s actions without aligning them to his physical form. His deformity and unnatural ‘breech’ entrance into the world is constantly mentioned throughout the tetralogy. He is labeled a ‘foul indigested lump’, an ‘abortive, rooting hog’, a ‘bottle spider’ and even a ‘slander of thy mother’s heavy womb’. (Act 1, Scene 3) Many theorists have claimed that Richard utlilises his body as a performative prop, as both an excuse and a distraction: it prevents him from looking fair, thus excusing him from social graces and allowing him to explain away past ills when wooing Anne. Just as much as his mother curses the teeth he was born with, so does he put them to good use, saying that he will ‘play the dog’ and ‘snarl and bite’. (Henry IV, Part 3, Act 5, Scene 6) In her studies on the rhetoric of disability in Shakespeare’s works, Katherine Williams believes that by presenting Richard’s body along a ‘continuum of ability, in which his physical difference becomes more or less apparent depending upon how he emphasizes it, Richard’s use of his physical frame, a body that he initially decries, actually works to challenge the binary between able/disabled bodies’. In other words, Richard makes the disabled body full of infinite, able potential. Critics continue to claim that Shakespeare’s extenuation of Richard’s disabilities (most notably adding the limp and/or hunchback) is a result of a playwright either appeasing the monarchy or a sign that he himself fell under the guise of the Tudor myth. Richard had to be made as ugly as possible, in form and nature, because he is the last of a family reign responsible for the corruption of state, or as Coppelia Kahn states, ‘the lump of chaos born of England’s Chaos’. Wolfgang Clements goes as far as to say that Richard is more symbolic than an actual character because his explanations of his monstrous dealings never suffice. Literary critic Stephen Greenblatt argues that “Richard’s deformity is less the cause of his evil nature than its sign.” Richard’s physical appearance may be symbolic in many ways but it is also very real and present and he engages with it constantly. In Henry VI Part 3, Richard describes his own deformity, ‘Like to a chaos, or an unlick’d bear whelp that carries no impression like the dam. And am I then a man to be beloved’. (Act 3, Scene 2) Prior to the death of his father, the Duke of York, Richard showed great passion for his father and his father’s right to the throne, yet as the play continues he begins to distance himself and question all family allegiance and relationships. Whether this stems from feeling that he doesn’t resemble his ‘dam’ or kin, from a general lack of love, or from feeling that he actually cannot be loved, is up for debate. At several points throughout Richard’s journey in the tetralogy, he addresses his own feelings or want for isolation: whether it be enforced as a result of his appearance or a self-inflicted, chosen state is under continuous contention. In Henry VI Part 3, in his famous final soliloquy Richard renounces all kin, connection and understanding of love: I had no father, I am like no father; I have no brother, I am like no brother; And this word ‘love’, which greybeards call divine, Be resident in men like one another and not in me - I am myself alone. (Act 5, Scene 7)

After the visitation of the ghosts before the Battle of Bosworth in Richard 3, Richard notes his own fear and isolation as one and the same thing: ‘What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by.’ (Act 5, Scene 5) So does he fear isolation itself, his own self, or the fact that the isolation he so avidly sought after has made him confront his true self? If Richard doesn’t have any relationships with the characters on stage, he certainly has one with the audience. He declares and shares his amorality and private ruses with the audience in his very first soliloquy. In fact, every scene in Act 1 is bookended with Richard addressing the audience. He continues to do this throughout the play creating a connection with the audience, which is often believed to align the audience as co-conspirators. We

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 13 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools are forced to be privy to Richard’s plans and must sit by, silently, as he carries them out. Considering this, does Richard merely use us in order to glorify his own narcissism? As Richard loses control and favor with the state and its citizens, his interactions with the audience notably lessen and the last time we have private council with him he bids us farewell by questioning his own self-love – ‘I rather hate myself’. Perhaps the only true relationship he ever had was with himself, and this is lost too.

MORALITY AND CONSCIENCE The Machiavellian Villain had an immense impact on the Elizabethan dramatists, and Shakespeare’s exploration of the interior ‘will-to-power’ and the outer deceptive mask has dominated much study of his works. Shakespeare’s characters vary in their moral framework and ability to engage with their conscience. Macbeth, for instance, spends that time between the ‘acting of a dreadful thing and the first motion’ (Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 1), in constant doubt and consideration. He acknowledged his ‘black and deep desires’, but fears them; Richard does not. In fact he revels in them. Many theorists feel that Richard, like Iago, Goneril and Regan, is morally ambiguous and his motivations are both unclear and unjustified. However, in his introduction to the Arden edition, James Siemon claims that it is Richard’s ‘clarity of motive’ that empowers him, his ‘sheer nerve’ in which he’ll go to any means to achieve the crown is what makes him so formidable. In an interview in 2012 whilst playing Richard at Shakespeare’s Globe, actor Mark Rylance stated: In rehearsals I thought, ‘No, he’s not a psychopath’. Shakespeare placed a conscience in this man who didn’t have a conscience. As Kevin Spacey said to me, it is a play about a man that doesn’t have a conscience and grows a conscience. I don’t think psychopaths dream either. Richard’s last confession after the dream-like visitation of the ghosts of his victims in Act V is probably the most telling, as it is his only clear moment of internal division. He oscillates between self-love and self-loathing, he labels himself a villain, then instantly withdraws the accusation. He does however state that this: Conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain. (Act 5, Scene 3)

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 14 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools WOMEN AND CURSES There is no doubt that the women of Richard 3 suffer inequality, great tragedy and deep suspicion. They are at best desired, but more often than not they are manipulated, scorned, resented, exploited and mocked. Richard does not take women seriously, is deeply disconnected from them and views them as mere pawns in his political game. He ironically attributes them power only to transfer blame, and does so when convincing Clarence of Queen Elizabeth’s betrayal – ‘Why, this it is when men are rul’d by women’. Women are reduced to stereotypes such as, ‘strumpets’ (Act 3, Scene 4), practicing ‘witchcraft’ (Act 3, Scene 4), ‘shallow, changing’ (Act 4, Scene 4), ‘lunatic’ and ‘frantic’ (Act 1, Scene 3). As Adelman notes, the women in Richard 3 move from states of power to powerlessness and pity, and then off stage altogether. Unlike the Henry Trilogy, the women now have no control or business in the state, they are reduced to the role of cursing and mourning. Margaret who was once ‘erotic, political and military’, the brains behind the King and the leader of battle, who proclaimed ‘Great Lords, wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms’ (Act 5, Scene 4), is now a mouthpiece of cursing and lamentation. Despite this, Shakespeare has ensured that these women and their children are central and essential to the play. The words ‘mother’ and ‘children’ occur in Richard 3 more than in any other Shakespeare play. The nobility and church are either silent or driven by self-interest; it is the women that unite and offer the only real resistance to Richard prior to Richmond’s invasion. Although not devoid of her own moral failings, Margaret’s outbursts are honest, and in her role as prophetess, she sets up and predicts what will prove the downfall of Richard’s reign. Her initial curse on Richard in Act 1, Scene 3 works much like a prologue predicting his fate: If heaven have any grievous plague in store Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee, O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe, And then hurl down their indignation On thee, the troubler of the poor world’s peace! The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul! Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou livest, And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends! No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine, Unless it be whilst some tormenting dream Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils! (Act 1, Scene 3)

Lady Anne, who is initially beguiled by Richard’s dissimulation, comes to realisation through her own instinctual fear, and willingness to place morality above personal gain – ‘I would to God that the inclusive verge of metal that must round my brow were red-hot steel to sear me to the brain’ (Act 4, Scene 1). The now experienced Queen Elizabeth manages not to be swayed by Richard’s wooing of her daughter (as she herself was by Edward) and postpones his proposal. Act 4, Scene 4, when the women unite, is often viewed as the emotional heart of the play. Their combined loss and grief inspires empathy and Margaret teaches her younger counterparts how to curse: Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were And that he that slew them fouler than he is: Bettering thy loss makes the bad-causer worse Revolving this will teach you how to curse. (Act 4, Scene 4)

It is here that tears and lamentations finally become ammunition, and the women can theoretically take back the power, ‘Thy woes will make them sharp and pierce like mine’.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 15 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools SUCCESSION, FATE AND FATALISM Many critics believe that Shakespeare’s Richard 3 was confirming the growing ‘Tudor myth’ of the day that on killing Richard and taking the crown, Henry Tudor or Henry VII restored England to peace and rightful rule. Factions of the Protestant reformation saw Richard as God’s final curse on English society. It is of course essential for the ruling classes of a society fatefully predestined by the Divine Right of Kings (in which the worthiness and moral standing of the ruler directly determined the balance and well-being of the nation) to confirm themselves the chosen people, with God on their side. Such moral fatalism is most evident in Richard 3 through the voice of Queen Margaret. Janis Lull suggests that, ‘Margaret gives voice to the belief, encouraged by the growing Calvinism of the Elizabethan era, that individual historical events are determined by God, who often punishes evil with evil’. In the case of Richard, it is implied that his lack of claim to the throne and corrupt and bloody nature is personified in his misshapen form. In asserting his claim as a Tudor and rightful ruler over Richard, Richmond uses images comparing the state of England to the human body. He states that England has ‘scarr’d herself’ under Richard’s brutal reign and will now find ‘smooth’d-fac’d peace.’ Richmond also infers that unlike Richard ‘The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar, that spoil’d your summer fields and fruitful vines’, (Act 5, Scene 2) his rule will offer prosperity. Sleep was also perceived in Elizabethan times as directly connected to one’s state of mind and fitness for position. On the morning of the Battle of Bosworth, Richmond reports that he had the ‘sweetest sleep and fairest-boding dreams’ whilst Richard awakes to tell his men that ‘Shadows tonight, have struck more terror to the soul of Richard than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers.’ (Act 5, Scene 3) Stephan Greenblatt argues that throughout the histories Shakespeare undermines monarchist ideologies rather than endorsing them. For instance Richard doesn’t respect tradition but rather utilizes and manipulates the rule of succession to his own advantage. His most shameless act in doing so is the slander of his brother Edward, in which he spreads claims of illegitimacy that result in the deaths of the young Princes. Buckingham states that with this act Richard claims to restore ‘the lineal glory’ of the ‘royal house’ (Act 3, Scene 7), yet this scheme works to disable Richard’s family; a hideous outcome that Richard openly confessed to have desired. Considering the Machiavellian tradition of power it is often believed that Richard is acting completely out of his own free will and that Shakespeare has Richard declare that he is ‘determined to play the villain’ (Act 1, Scene 1) as a pun, ironically mocking the notions of religious and royal predestination.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 16 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools RICHARD 3 FROM THE DIRECTOR

Peter Evan’s Richard 3 inhabits a contemporary setting, but he is not interested in squeezing Shakespeare’s plays into real locations and moments in history. He finds the latter process to be somewhat reductive, only allowing these plays, which are complicated conversations in history, to be viewed through a single lens. For Evans, so many elements of this popular history play resonate with our current situation; power, political intrigue, corruption etc., and he feels he should allow the audience to draw these conclusions themselves. What he is interested in is the community that Richard flourishes in, and how to build that on stage. It is not only those who are active that bring about political corruption, but the hangers on and standers by that ‘don’t do anything’, in aid of preserving their own status. In Evans’ production the whole cast will remain on stage for the entire play. They are ever-present and in proximity of the crown and the power it holds. Evans is fascinated by the character of Richard 3. He believes his skill lies in his audacity; he is the unlikely leader, a type of leader nobody knows or suspects, and so his techniques at usurpation are innovative and unexpected. This is particularly evident with Lady Anne; she has never been wooed so impudently and Evans believes this ‘catches her by surprise’. Richard ingenuously appeals to her respect for moral retribution and like most abusive relationships, he places blame on Anne, the victim: her beauty is now the cause of his treachery. Evans goes as far as to say that the other characters on stage are completely unaware and never suppose they are in Richard 3. They begin the play in Edward IV and at most they believe that will transition into Edward V and the York legacy will continue. Like many critics, Evans notes the numerous roles that Richard plays and wants to highlight how he develops these roles as a response to each challenge that arises. Richard is a great ‘actor’ and Evans feels that when this ‘actor’ is played by a woman it allows for more empathy. The very status that is inherent in gender and the deep misogyny in this play comes more to light with a female lead. Evans believes that Richard is profoundly suspicious of women, he places blame on them constantly, and although the women never take a military or stately role in Richard 3, they are not merely victims but mouthpieces that uncover Richard’s villainy. Evans acknowledges that Kate Mulvany and he do have opposing views of Richard’s motives. Unlike Evans, Mulvany believes that Richard is ‘created’ not born like this: nurture not nature has constructed him. Evans agrees in so far as considering the effects of isolation on Richard; he notes that Richard is constantly surrounded by others yet is forever alone. Most importantly, Peter Evans is interested in this play as he feels it is where Shakespeare found his unique voice, where he discovered how to explore conscience and truly understand empathy; skills that would serve him for the rest of his writing career.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 17 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools RICHARD 3 DESIGN

Peter Evans and designer Anna Cordingley have worked together on multiple Bell Shakespeare productions prior to Richard 3, and have developed a certain vocabulary for their collaboration. Peter first met Anna at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne and had wanted to collaborate with her for several years. In 2011 they finally produced Julius Caesar together for Bell Shakespeare in collaboration with Kate Mulvany, who was not only dramaturge on the project, but played the role of Cassius. They went on to collaborate on the productions of Macbeth, Phedre, Tartuffe and Romeo And Juliet. On approaching Richard 3, both Peter and Anna found themselves essentially interested in its politics. Peter believes that all of Shakespeare’s histories can be aligned to events in 20th and 21st century politics, and that any investigation of these texts is very much suited to our time. In their early discussions around general design concepts, Anna and Peter found themselves drawn to images from the mid-20th century; more specifically the Kennedy era, with its backroom deals and glamorous ballroom galas. They became interested in early elite New York, its gatherings of the ‘who’s who’, Truman Capote’s ‘Black and White Ball’ and a society filled with insecurities and consumed by social climbing. For them this world aligns very closely with the suspicion, competition and corruption of the English court during the War of the Roses. Several other influences arose during Anna and Peter’s research including Fitz Lang’s Mystery of Fear, Luis Buñuel’s 1962 surrealist film The Exterminating Angel and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). The design concept they finally came to is a cultural collage of Lindbergh-esque glamour images, 1960’s voyeuristic political photography and draws on this range of early popular and surrealist films that orbit around the same idea of people trapped in a glamourous, surreal world without escape.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 18 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools SET The space they decided on is a contemporary one, filled with the black tie crowd one might see coming from the Oscars. It’s a glamorous room or foyer in a hotel in a palette of red and black, with a plethora of shiny surfaces. The room is very much real, but versatile, a playground for social and political interplay. In some ways it is also non-naturalistic. The room has no doors with all actors remaining on stage for the duration of the show. It has the potential to make its visitors descend into madness, to experience something other-worldly and the only access the characters have to the outside world is through projections on the walls and a dumb waiter that brings props in and out of the space. It is a permanent party, in which the quests drift in and out of the action and Richard is in control, as host.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 19 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools COSTUME The costuming is equally as glamorous, with a slight 1920’s black tie feel to it. As Richard, Kate will be playing the role as a man, wearing a suit, but with no guise to hide her female attributes. Rather, she is an actor playing a role, and the very fact that it is a woman in a man’s role, in a man’s costume will bring the inherent misogyny in the play to light. Much discussion and research occurred with regards to the equipment Kate will wear to aid Richard’s disability. Anna and Peter looked into early scoliosis strapping and other forms of assistance that was available at the time and felt this was integral to character development. All costume changes will occur on stage. Actors in doubling roles will retrieve their new costumes from a stack of clothes on stage, much like the pile of fur coats you might see on a bed in a spare room at a party.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 20 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools RICHARD 3 - OTHER RESOURCES BEST EDITIONS OF THE PLAY The best version of Richard 3 for school students is the Cambridge School Edition: by Rex Gibson, Linzy Brady, Jane Coles, Vicki Wienand and Richard Andrews The Arden Edition (Editor James R. Siemon, 2009) is very comprehensive with detailed notes, however is it more dense and academic

HELPFUL WEBSITES Shakespeare Online is a helpful and accurate resource providing notes on the title character and other elements of the text: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/richardiiiscenes.html

Shakespeare’s Globe in London has a very comprehensive Education section: http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/education/teachers/teaching-resources

The Royal Shakespeare Company has plot summaries and records of previous productions: https://www.rsc.org.uk/richard-iii/

The Touchstone database is very UK-focused, but has some amazing images from a huge number of productions of all Shakespeare’s plays: http://traffic.bham.ac.uk

GENERAL SHAKESPEARE GUIDES AND BOOKS Crystal, David & Ben, Shakespeare’s Words: A glossary and language companion, Penguin Books, 2002 Ackroyd, Peter, Shakespeare: The Biography, London: Chatto and Windus, 2005 Greenblatt, Stephen, Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare, W.W. Norton and Company, 2016 Bibliography Garber, Marjorie ‘Descanting on Deformity: Richard III and the shape of History’, Shakespeare’s History Plays, London: Pearson Education Ltd., 2002 Grady, Hugh, Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Montaigne: Power and Subjectivity from Richard II to Hamlet, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 58, Number 1, Spring, 2005 Kahn, Copelia, Man’s Estate: Masculine Identity in Shakespeare, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981 Packer, Tina and Whitney, John, O. Power Plays: Shakespeare’s Lessons in Leadership and Management, Simon and Shuster, 2000 Siemon, James, R. ‘Introduction’, The Arden Shakespeare: Richard III, London: Methuen Drama, 2009 Schaap Williams, Katherine, ‘Enabling Richard: The Rhetoric of Disability in Richard III’, Vol 29, No 4 (2009) Wheeler, Richard, P. ‘History, Character and Conscience in Richard III’, Comparative Drama, Vol. 5 No. 4 (Winter 1971-72), pp 301-321

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 21 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS Shakespeare’s Globe 2003 all-female production of Richard III, starring Kathryn Hunter: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/richard-iii-the-globe- london-108544.html https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/jun/13/theatre.artsfeatures1

Interview with actor Mark Rylance: http://www.psychoanalysis-bpa.org/docs/JT_Mark_Rylance%20Jan%2013.pdf

OTHER READING Merrill, Lisa, When Romeo Was a Woman: Charlotte Cushman and Her Circle of Female Spectators, November 2000.

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 22 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools RICHARD 3 ACTIVITIES EXERCISE ONE DRAMA Research: Find and research a female actor in history (not listed above in the resources) who has played a role in a Shakespeare play that is traditionally played by a male actor. Alternatively, find and research a male actor that has played a role in a Shakespeare play that is traditionally played by a female actor. What part did they play and what sort of technical and social challenges do you think may have arisen in doing so? As part of your research: •• Find production images or a promotional poster from of the production that features that actor/actress. •• Did the actor/actress play the role as their own gender, therefore changing the story, or did they alter their performance to play the role in the gender it was originally written for? •• If they kept true to the original, what technical •• elements or theatrical techniques may they have used to achieve the role in a gender that is not their own, i.e. costume, voice, gesture? •• Search for two reviews of the performance. How was it received, were the reviews positive or negative, and what were the reviewer’s reasons? Analysis: •• What do you think the director’s intentions may have been in casting the play in this way? •• How do you think the casting changes the relationships in the play, if at all? •• Do you think this alternative casting may have affected the overall meaning of the play? Does it open up new discoveries or expose some underlying prejudices that are embedded in the play? Extension activity: Is there a Shakespeare role that you would like to play that you would not be traditionally cast in because of the gender and why? What is it about that character that excites and interests you? Do you think you can just as easily empathise and understand the role despite it being of another gender? Performance: Choose one of the character’s speeches. Go through the text and make sense of the emotional journey, the experiences the character is going through, etc. Is there anything about their journey that you can’t relate to? Use your imagination to transport yourself into the role and its given circumstances. 1. First, play the speech as yourself, in your own gender. 2. Now use your technical theatrical skills to attempt the role in its original form. Try not to offer an exaggerated stereotype of the gender: stay true to the role. What changes did you make to your performance to achieve this?

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 23 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools EXERCISE TWO ENGLISH RELATIONSHIPS AND LOYALTY There are 52 named characters in Richard 3 and their relationships are quite complex. It can be beneficial to get your head around how they all fit together before closely studying the play: be it through family, employment, loyalty to title or position etc. Refer to the Character Profiles page for more detail on the relationships between the characters in the play. Activity: Create your own visual character map for Shakespeare’s Richard 3 with the following characters: Richard, Edward IV, Clarence, Queen Elizabeth, Margaret, Duchess of York, Rivers, Dorset, Lady Anne, Prince Edward, Richmond, Buckingham, Tyrell, Catesby, Bishop of Ely, Hastings The map can be as creative and visual as you wish. The most important thing is that it is clear and can prove helpful to you throughout your studies as a quick reference for characters and relationships, and how they change over the five acts of the play. On the map show: •• The historical family line of the Royalty and what house they belong to (York, Lancaster, Woodville, other). •• Differentiate those who are Lords, church, followers and employees, and show who they are loyal to. •• As much detail as possible with regards to the relationships between the characters. •• Indicate where loyalty changes throughout the play. Mark at which points characters flee, change allegiances, etc. •• Most importantly, chart Richard’s journey throughout the play. When does he start to lose support and who is left by his side? (You can make a separate graph for this if need be.)

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 24 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools EXERCISE THREE ENGLISH AND DRAMA MAN OF MANY FACES Many theorists have been intrigued by the multi-faceted nature of Shakespeare’s Richard 3. He is the consummate actor, who can manipulate and adjust his language and demeanor to appease any audience and seize any siutation to his benefit. As Richard himself says in Henry VI Part 3, he can frame his ‘face to all occasions’. (Act 3, Scene 2) Activity: George Steevens praised the role in 1793 for its variety, saying Shakespeare’s Richard played: ‘The hero, the lover, the statesman, the buffoon, the hypocrite, the hardened and the repentant sinner’. Go through the play and find three examples of different personas that Richard puts on throughout the play. You can use the above list as a guide. •• What face/persona is he portraying in this moment and who is it intended for? •• Isolate and analyse the scene or piece of text in which he does this. Avoid using Richard’s relationship with the audience as one of your examples. Answer the following questions for each example: •• What sort of language does Richard use in this scene to manipulate the other character/s, is it vulgar, formal, emotive, etc.? •• Is he playing higher or lower status by putting on this role? •• Why has he chosen this particular persona in this situation and how does it help him? •• Is/are the other character/s in any way aware of what Richard is doing to manipulate him/her/them? •• How does Richard structure his argument and tactics throughout the scene or speech to affect his audience? Make note of where he changes tactics and how effective each one is. His first encounter with Lady Anne in Act 1, Scene 2 is a good place to start. •• At what point in the play does this occur and how does that affect Richard’s performance: is he losing power, is he desperate? •• Briefly compare all three examples: where is he most successful? Do the different roles/personas that he plays vary at all?

Extension: Richard Loves An Audience Richard has one of the most interesting and close relationships with an audience in all of Shakespeare’s works. He has five soliloquies with the audience in the first three scenes. •• Make a list of all of Richard’s interactions with the audience. •• Take a look at his first opening speech and his final private speech to the audience after the ghosts of his victims appear. How has he changed? How has his language changed? Has his relationship with the audience changed? At which point do we trust him more, if at all?

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 25 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools EXERCISE FOUR ENGLISH DEFORMITY AND ISOLATION Richard 3’s deformity and unnatural birth is constantly mentioned throughout Shakespeare’s play. Most characters cannot criticise Richard’s actions and flaws without aligning them to his physical form. Even Richard himself constantly draws attention to his own physicality. Activity: Make a character table of all the ways that Richard is described (physically) throughout the play, by others, and most importantly by himself. Categorise them into each Act so you see how this changes over the course of the play. The table will be a helpful resource for recalling quotes when it comes to essay writing. It will also allow you to analyse the impact that this sort of labeling might have on a character’s emotions, actions and self-esteem.

Characters Act One Act Two Act Three Act Four Act Five Richard ‘cheated of feature’ ‘Rudely stamped’

Duchess of York

Margaret

Richmond

Answer the following questions: •• Now seeing all the labels and insults grouped together what sort of impact do you think this might have on the character? Do you think this is what motivates Richard’s villainous actions? •• Do you think Richard isolates himself because of his deformity? •• Many theorists see Richard’s deformity as more of a sign or symbol of a broken or corrupt state? Do you think this was Shakespeare’s intention? Was he just trying to appease Queen Elizabeth and promote the current Tudor monarch above their past enemies or does Shakespeare makes us connect and feel for Richard’s plight? Extension: Make a list of the quotes that describe Richmond. How are they different from Richard’s descriptions and how is the language differentiated? From this, what do you think Richmond represents in the play?

LEARNING RESOURCES RICHARD 3 © Bell Shakespeare 2017, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, Page 26 of 26 reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australian and overseas schools