Here are some SPOILERS!!!! for Act Four of Richard the Second, which is posted below... Excitingly the far better resolution of this new phone means you can really make out the details now, like the unnoticed mote of schmutz beneath my eye for the majority of a scene in which I'm supposed to be staring into a mirror. Maybe Richard can see the speck and chooses to leave it. Maybe it reads like that. Other innovations include: swapping which hand holds the crown when switching between Richard and Bolingbroke and then working out how to edit this so I don't look like I'm speed-milking a cow - sparing myself seven years of bad luck by simultaneously running at different speeds a recording of me tapping a mirror rather than actually breaking one (that came out alright I think) - and having nearly everyone turn Scottish it seems. The biggest decision though has been where to mark the points of injury while tracking the increasingly inevitable, the moments of genuine distress, since there's such a sustained performance of grief from both Richard and the Queen, and they must be enjoying some of it. What's surprising then? What's the worst news? It was watching Mark Rylance when I first realised that Northumberland is essentially asking Richard to sign his own death warrant, which was useful. As was the BBC's Richard II with Derek Jacobi (not pictured) when I first saw the King's surrender at Flint Castle played as a private aside to Aumerle, rather than howled down to Northumberland, which makes a lot more sense, or is at least a lot easier to act. That's what's hard: working out how to make this easy. Nearly there.
I think what I'm finding really hard to figure out here is how much of an act Richard II is putting on, and what exactly he's trying to achieve by doing so, if anything. (Characters exaggerating their grief for the sole purpose of making a scene are a bit like my kryptonite, I'm afraid.) Oh, and I somehow managed to completely miss the fact that the Duke of Aumerle is in fact the Duke of York's son - I should start each play by memorising the list of characters and their existing connections, I guess.
As for the mirror breaking, I genuinely thought that was a stock sound effect, so well done on that. Now back to trying to work out which character(s) Shakespeare was expecting us to root for, and why - unless the point of the play is precisely that they're all awful, awful people? Or perhaps his actual aim was simply to retell a segment of English history? Guess we (I) will soon find out...
Richard, definitely - unless I'm getting it all wrong and he did genuinely believe in all that nonsense about oaths and being a king by divine right. Which might as well be, come to think of it, but my main point is that I don't understand his motivations at all as a character - starting from the beginning where he couldn't seem to make up his mind whether or not he should let the duel between Bolingbroke and Mowbray go on as planned.
That being said, I really liked the symbolism of him shattering the mirror/his own image. Maybe he was genuinely distraught and I've been misreading his character all along. Let's just hope the final act will eventually reveal the truth about Richard's real motivations and feelings.
I think it's quite important to at least be able to believe that he might believe in all that stuff. That might be the key to the play, to do it a bit more like The Crown. In fact I think it's so important I'm going to record the whole play all over again.
I think what I'm finding really hard to figure out here is how much of an act Richard II is putting on, and what exactly he's trying to achieve by doing so, if anything. (Characters exaggerating their grief for the sole purpose of making a scene are a bit like my kryptonite, I'm afraid.) Oh, and I somehow managed to completely miss the fact that the Duke of Aumerle is in fact the Duke of York's son - I should start each play by memorising the list of characters and their existing connections, I guess.
ReplyDeleteAs for the mirror breaking, I genuinely thought that was a stock sound effect, so well done on that. Now back to trying to work out which character(s) Shakespeare was expecting us to root for, and why - unless the point of the play is precisely that they're all awful, awful people? Or perhaps his actual aim was simply to retell a segment of English history? Guess we (I) will soon find out...
Is Richard over the top, or just me? That is the question. And don't worry about York and Aumerle. Not yet.
ReplyDeleteRichard, definitely - unless I'm getting it all wrong and he did genuinely believe in all that nonsense about oaths and being a king by divine right. Which might as well be, come to think of it, but my main point is that I don't understand his motivations at all as a character - starting from the beginning where he couldn't seem to make up his mind whether or not he should let the duel between Bolingbroke and Mowbray go on as planned.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I really liked the symbolism of him shattering the mirror/his own image. Maybe he was genuinely distraught and I've been misreading his character all along. Let's just hope the final act will eventually reveal the truth about Richard's real motivations and feelings.
I think it's quite important to at least be able to believe that he might believe in all that stuff. That might be the key to the play, to do it a bit more like The Crown. In fact I think it's so important I'm going to record the whole play all over again.
ReplyDelete