I mean, Richard the 3rd the real guy was slandered fucking hard by the play. Shakespeare was motivated in many was to shit talk the ancestors of non-Tudor royalty
It being propaganda is part of what makes him so fascinating to me. Especially if you also take his character in Henry VI into account as well.
What was the intention with him? Shakespeare is one of the greatest writers of all time, his characters have so much depth and each line has 17 different ways to be read.
So when he makes a character open up the play with a monologue that basically can be read as “hello, I am an evil piece of shit and I suck so fucking much that I have nothing to do in peacetime. So I’m going to kill my brothers and usurp the throne. I will do this because I am ugly and unloveable.” Then I get intrigued. Was this just an attempt at sloppy propaganda where there is no deeper reading? Or was it Shakespeare’s intention to have the depth that is available where you can see someone who absolutely loathes themselves and you get hints of why.
When his mother hates him, is that then because “he’s evil so of course she hates him” propaganda, or is it because of a deeper psychological aspect. I honestly don’t know and that’s really cool in my eyes. This might have been one of the only times Willy was just phoning it in and being literal - yeah he’s a piece of shit bad guy, here’s a monologue where he admits it himself.
Compare Richard to Iago. Both evil assholes, both charismatic monsters. Iago still gets some weird psychosexual depth and motivation that makes him more than a charicature. That same depth is available to Richard, but only if we choose to read it like such - and that might be a “wrong” reading. The intention might have been to just make him a literal cartoon villain.
The current climate can’t do this well, but I would love to see a version of Richard III where he’s a repressed trans person. I wish there was a big time trans director that could make that.
Also Romeo and Juliet is a comedy and practically every director misses that even though it’s a common take
I mean, Richard the 3rd the real guy was slandered fucking hard by the play. Shakespeare was motivated in many was to shit talk the ancestors of non-Tudor royalty
It being propaganda is part of what makes him so fascinating to me. Especially if you also take his character in Henry VI into account as well.
What was the intention with him? Shakespeare is one of the greatest writers of all time, his characters have so much depth and each line has 17 different ways to be read.
So when he makes a character open up the play with a monologue that basically can be read as “hello, I am an evil piece of shit and I suck so fucking much that I have nothing to do in peacetime. So I’m going to kill my brothers and usurp the throne. I will do this because I am ugly and unloveable.” Then I get intrigued. Was this just an attempt at sloppy propaganda where there is no deeper reading? Or was it Shakespeare’s intention to have the depth that is available where you can see someone who absolutely loathes themselves and you get hints of why.
When his mother hates him, is that then because “he’s evil so of course she hates him” propaganda, or is it because of a deeper psychological aspect. I honestly don’t know and that’s really cool in my eyes. This might have been one of the only times Willy was just phoning it in and being literal - yeah he’s a piece of shit bad guy, here’s a monologue where he admits it himself.
Compare Richard to Iago. Both evil assholes, both charismatic monsters. Iago still gets some weird psychosexual depth and motivation that makes him more than a charicature. That same depth is available to Richard, but only if we choose to read it like such - and that might be a “wrong” reading. The intention might have been to just make him a literal cartoon villain.
The current climate can’t do this well, but I would love to see a version of Richard III where he’s a repressed trans person. I wish there was a big time trans director that could make that.
Also Romeo and Juliet is a comedy and practically every director misses that even though it’s a common take