I greatly enjoyed watching the Grassroots version of the play, Richard II. I've never read a play, and the immediately watched it, so this was a really interesting experience for me. Since I do not know if there is a specific prompt for this post, from what I can tell, I will write what struck me the most from this version of the play. I was fascinated by how incredibly different the play felt when I watched it verses just reading it. I felt much more impressed by the word play and by the character development when it was preformed before me. When I read the play, I felt very little pity for Richard. He came off as a fairly awful king who no one really liked--of course he should be dethroned! However, when I watched all of his subjects turn against him and his own cousin steal his throne, I not only felt pity; I felt myself take a stance in defense of his kingship. I saw the pain in his eyes as he came to the realization that his kingdom was being stolen from him. Not only was his kingship stolen from him, but it was definitely clear that he felt that it was being stolen from the just leadership of God as well.
Like I said before, I learned so much more from watching the play than from reading it. I may try to read the play with a few people as a way to do my reading homework. Watching this play firmly positioned me on the side of the argument that Shakespeare is meant to be watched, not just read.
I would agree that Shakespeare should be watched to get a better feel for the play. However, watching the play should not be the only way to analyze it. As I had stated in another post, there is no right way to interpret a character thus the outcome of watching two different plays with two different Richards. Reading the text will give a chance for you as the reader to analyze and interpret the characters for yourself without the bias of a previously seen play. Reading the words also helps see the details in the dialogue that would have been missed. For example in the dialogue for Romeo and Juliet, when they first meet, Romeo uses the informal thee and thou but Juliet uses the formal you and your in an attempt to keep distance between them. But in the famous balcony scene, she switches to the informal thee and thou thus showing her acceptance of her feelings for Romeo and Romeo himself. It can be hard to point that out when one is concentrating on the many other aspects of a play.
ReplyDeleteWatching the Grassroots' adaptation humanized Richard so much more than the text does! It was neat to see his feelings expressed through other ways than words. I thought his almost infantile characterization was interesting! It almost softened the betrayals' blows on the audience's consciousness. I left feeling like it was a shame that everyone abandoned Richard, but also mildly annoyed at him (so I was okay with the result). Also, if you want to get a group from our class to read the plays aloud, I'm interested!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you, Alyssa. I was definitely team Bolingbroke while reading the play ;) but when I watched it I couldn't help but want to defend Richard, too! It was wierd, because I knew from what I'd read that Bolingbroke really would be a better king, but still how everything was portrayed just really made me sympathize with Richard... it was a weird conflict of intellect and emotion :/ :)
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