I went to see a campus production of Richard III tonight with some lab friends. I feel like one of the opening lines sums up the experience fairly well: "Now is the winter of our discontent."
I have been spoiled by the excellent Shakespeare productions at BYU. This one was sadly discontenting. There were no sets, no costumes, only 2 good actors. But to be perfectly fair, the play itself is not brilliant. It's clear goal is to make Richard as obviously as possible a villain, not artfully as Shylock in Merchant of Venice, but cruelly, unambiguously, and blandly. For a history rather than a tragedy there is an impressive body count on and off stage. There are also some famous lines that were good to place and I would doubtless enjoyed it more with a better presentation. As it was in my discontent by intermission I, like Richard, was wishing myself some transportation "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse."
Really, I would get the best end of that bargain since I don't have a kingdom
*Note. Richard III makes an important appearance in Galaxy Quest. I'm not sure why in Galaxy Quest Snape so persistently brings up that he played Richard III, but having done a little googling I discovered that one of the monologues from Richard III was Snape's audition piece to get into the royal academy of dramatic arts.
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This would have been cooler if we'd gotten to watch the tower of London scenes on site.
ReplyDeleteOh, interesting about Snape. I thought the reference was because of Patrick Stewart's Shakespeare career, including being nominated for a Tony for his role as Macbeth.
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