Jan's Blog #3: RIII newbies

by jan
Friday, May 9, 2008 12:16am (PST)

Heather wrote:
“My friend and I have been very anxious to see our first Shakespeare play this coming summer. We are both 30 somethings who never studied literature in college. Do you think Richard III might be over our heads? Or, do you think we should give it a try?”

Absolutely, Heather, come on down for RICHARD III! Don’t be friiigghhttenneeddd by the HISTORIES!

Truth be told, if the histories are well staged, they can actually be easier for the Shakespeare neophyte to follow, because they tend to be more straightforward stories with fewer subplots, and witty wordplay is less emphasized.

I have always felt that the “histories” should really be called the “adventures”—because the stories are gripping, the stakes are high, and the characters are vivid!

While you don’t need to know English history to enjoy Shakesepeare’s histories, the sheer number of characters can be hard to cope with. An actor that I used to work with once pleaded with me, “Please don’t cast me again as Lord #32!” Adding to the confusion, I’ll admit, is that the English royals have never been terribly creative in coming up with unique names; there are SEVERAL Richards and Edwards in this play.

However, we stage the plays so that these difficulties are minimized. Sometimes we’ll use a particular color palette in the costumes to help the audience tell who’s on which side (the Yorks in creams, blues, and greens; the Lancasters in reds, browns, and rusts, for example), or we’ll use particular insignias or props, we’ll group them together onstage, etc—lots of little tricks are employed to keep you feeling oriented in the action and engaged in the story. And in Richard III, the conflict is no longer from a foreign enemy, but from within a family; the English civil war is over, and now the royals begin to devour and destroy one another within the castle walls… It’s great stuff!

Having said all that, if you have the time and inclination, you can help orient yourselves and ease nervousness by doing a bit of fun reading in advance. Remember, there are no points for doing this the hard way! So, here are some easy ways to do it:

Find a good synopsis of the play. My favorite online source to recommend is www.sparknotes.com: just enter the name of the play, and the synopsis, characters, major themes, etc, are listed right there. The writing is engaging and accurate—neither dumbed-down nor unpleasantly thick. If you’re inspired to dig deeper, you can read through the additional entries, or look up notes on one particular character, etc. AND, if you are so excited by all that, that you want to read some or all of the play, you can click over to “No Fear Shakespeare”, which has Shakespeare’s text and a well-written modern version side-by-side.

If you prefer books to online reading, the No Fear Shakespeare series is in print in all the major bookstores (they’ve done the major plays but not the whole canon). There are also lots of narrative versions of Shakespeare, including beautifully- illustrated children’s books. My old favorite, though, is STORIES FROM SHAKESPEARE, by Marchette Chute. First published in 1956 and reprinted many times, Ms. Chute covers each play in about three or four pages, and they are beautifully done—I’ve never found better.

If you are a videophile, try watching a movie of the play before you come, but be careful to choose one that is well done, or you will come expecting to be bored, and we don’t want that!! Both of our Shakespeares this season have had excellent movie versions done fairly recently: RICHARD III starring Ian McKellan (1995) is set in 1930’s Britain with a growing Nazi influence, and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (1999) with Rupert Everett, Kevin Kline, Calista Flockhart is whimsical and easy to watch, set in Italy in the late 19th century.

So, let me throw out this question to you, readers—how do you prepare to come to a Shakespeare play? Favorite sites, books, video, etc? Speak—‘tis charity to show!