by Jerry Curtis

Created on: January 26, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

"Life and Death of King Richard the Third" is one of Shakespeare's final historical dramas; King Henry the Eighth is the last. Shakespeare wrote ten, beginning with King John covering the period from 1215 to about 1485.

The play opens in the reign of Edward IV, the latest victor in the continuing War of the Roses. Edward is Richard's older brother, and Richard is fourth in line behind his nephews and brother Clarence in succession. So Richard has some obstacles to overcome in achieving his underlying ambition, which is to be king.

Richard III is the original Snidely Whiplash, skulking villainously across the stage with his droll and conceited asides. From the outset Richard sets in motion a series of events designed to bring him to power, only in the end to be steamrolled by the inevitable consequences of his own evil. Richard seems throughout the play almost sociopathic. He is an embittered because of his personal deformity. He curses Nature for robbing him of the love of women.

My favorite Richard III portrayer was Laurence Olivier, decked out in 14th century garb, complete with fake humpback and glib demeanor. My absolute favorite scene, moreover, is his wooing of the Lady Anne. Richard, who admittedly killed Anne's husband and father and is physically ugly, actually talks her into taking his ring! In true Snidely braggadocio Richard tells us ""[w]as ever woman in this humour wooed? / Was ever woman in this humour won?"

The foregoing scene could probably be used as further evidence of the misogyny of Shakespeare's day. It is truly difficult to accept that the lovely, grieving Anne would accept such a toad of a man as her husband!

In the remainder of the play,we observe Richard removing, one by one, his obstacles to the throne. First, he poisons Edward's mind against his older brother Clarence, who is hauled off to the Tower where he (Clarence) dies. In perhaps one of the saddest scenes of the play, Clarence relates his horrible nightmare of death, which chills us to the bone with his foreboding of doom. Clarence's dream comes true, as two of Richard's henchmen murder poor Clarence by stabbing him and immersing him in a keg.

The death of Clarence is too much for poor old Edward, who passes away, thinking that his two young sons were his insurance of continuing the family bloodline. Richard has other plans. He enlists cronies to spread the word that the King's sons are illegitimate and is successful in getting them confined to the Tower. Like Clarence, the princes are brutally murdered by Richard's assassin.

Next we see Richard manipulating the nobles to name him king. One-by-one, and through broken promises and intimidation, Richard succeeds in alienating his former supporters. His enemies in exile gather to the colors of Henry, the Duke of Richmond, where the armies meet at Bosworth Field. Richard III's famous desperate cry "My kingdom for a horse" as his enemies chop him to death, brings an end to this evil character.

But peace reigns again at the end of the play when the victorious Duke of Richmond sighs, "Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again; /That she may long live here, God say Amen!"

One can imagine this play being presented at the Globe Theater in 16th Century London. It is hard to imagine that the common folk (groundlings) didn't boo and whistle as Richard III did his evil on everyone in the play. A presentation of this play must have been like our own 19th Century melodramas where old Snidely, instead of saying "My kingdom for a horse!" said "Curses. Foiled again!"

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