Richard III [1593?]

The theatrical success of the role of Richard himself has tended to obscure the fact that his play presents any important critical problems. It was a very early play, the earliest of those which have consistently held the stage; and if it seemed dull in parts, or inconsistent, or in any way puzzling, that was easily accounted for by Shakespeare’s immaturity. The fact that it is a work of outstanding technical virtuosity, in words and stagecraft, has not always been given the stress it needs; still less that the elaborate patterns worked out in it give it an exceptionally firm sense of structural unity. ¹ It was treated in the eighteenth century as a tragedy, and compared (unfavourably, of course) with Macbeth; in the nineteenth century it was hardly allowed the tragic dignity, but rather regarded as melodrama, a prototype for The Red Barn, and fit matter for Lewis Carroll’s parody. But the play thus criticized was scarcely the one that Shakespeare wrote: Colley Cibber’s version was first acted at Drury Lane in July 1700, and though the proportion of Shakespeare’s words gradually increased, Cibber’s arrangement of material dominated stage versions until very recently indeed. ² It concentrated exclusively on Richard himself; omitted scenes in which he did not appear, minimized Margaret’s role (which was often cut entirely), and drastically pruned the formalized patterning of language which is so conspicuous a feature of the play, on the grounds that it was undramatic. This selective procedure is still often followed, most notably in Sir Laurence Olivier’s film. And although the critics usually did read Shakespeare’s text, their attention was for two centuries as selective as the actors’.