Video, Works Cited, and Advice From an Actor

Works Cited

Marius, Richard. Thomas More
 Alfred A. Knopf, 1984
© 1984

Potter, Jeremy. Good King Richard? 169; 1983

Breen, Dan. Thomas More’s History of Richard III: Genre, Humanism, and Moral Education

Harrison, Richard. Sic Transit Gloria: The Passing of Historical Reputations

Boyce, Charles. Encyclopedia of Shakespeare

And here is some feedback from the actor who played Richard III in the Grassroots Production!

• 

  09:44
  

  Catherine Felt
  

  
  

  Hello!
  My name is Catherine Felt and first off I want to congratulate you on your great performance of Richard III. I am currently writing a paper about Richard III as a victim of Renaissance society due to his deformities. I'm wondering what you think of this character as potentially disabled socially because of his limitations. If this is unclear let me know. I would love to hear your thoughts, even just in general about Richard and if he should be seen as a victim instead of a villain. Thanks! And congratulations again!
  Catherine Felt
• Martes
• 

  13:37
  

  Davey Morrison Dillard
  

  
  

  Thanks for the message, Catherine! That sounds fascinating. I don't know a ton about the historical Richard III, so I'm not the greatest source, but I did do a little bit of reading up on him in preparing for the role.

  Most people think that Richard probably wasn't actually deformed. Contemporary accounts describe him as short, and maybe with one shoulder higher than the other (probably a result of his training with swords rather than an indication that he was a hunchback). Some people really liked him as a leader and some people disliked him, but there's no question that Shakespeare takes some pretty huge historical liberties with his source material in the play, which is essentially Tudor propaganda, turning Richard into a sneering villain and Richmond into the man who saves the entire country from death and decay. At the time the play was written, deformity of the body was seen as a sign of evil within, so Shakespeare and others after Richard's death began to exaggerate his deeds (he probably wasn't responsible for most of the deaths in the play, though there's some question about some of them) and also embellish descriptions of Richard, turning him into a hunchback, giving him a withered arm, etc., as "proof" that he was an evil king who needed to be overthrown. The historical Richard really was a victim of history, and the enduring popularity of Shakespeare's play has really done a number on his reputation. He may or may not have been a very good guy, but he almost certainly wasn't the Machiavellian villain of the play.

  As far as Shakespeare's Richard goes (as opposed to the historical Richard), I definitely think he is a victim as well as a villain. From his first soliloquy, he sets himself up as a deformed outcast ("sent before my time into this breathing world that dogs bark at me as I halt by them"). Of course, as mentioned, for Elizabethan audiences, this deformity would still have been an indication of spiritual distortion--rather than a reason to pity Richard, they may well seen it as more reason to hate him. In many respects, Richard is an entirely flat character--he's dynamic and a lot of fun, but he doesn't really change much at all throughout the course of the play. Shakespeare's audiences loved flat stock characters, and Shakespeare almost always works from that template, writing characters that play to the strengths of the "types" that were in his company--the romantic leads, the villains, the clowns, the buffoonish old man, and so on--but he also (and I think this is one of the reasons why his work has endured) injects interesting, unexpected subtlety into these broad stock characters. Even a relatively flat character like Richard, whose objectives hardly change from beginning to end, obviously has a lot going on--he's charming and he's repulsive, he's funny and he's scary, he's a villain and he's a victim, he's an outcast and he's a brown noser. Richard definitely plays the pity card throughout the play, often insincerely, but I think there's some real anguish there, and, at least to the modern reader, I think that definitely comes across as one of Richard's big motivating forces: He feels cut off from and scorned by society and so he does everything he can to prove that he is better than they are, that they should love him and fear him. In a lot of ways, he's a very charismatic version of a Columbine-type killer--the high school kid who's a social outcast who quietly plans and executes terrible revenge.

  Anyways, I hope that is helpful in giving you a place to start in your research. Let me know if you have any other questions or need any clarifications and I'll try to do what I can to help. Good luck--I'd love to read the paper when it's done! :)

  Davey