Saturday, September 13, 2008

Act I, Scene ii of Richard III: One of the Hardest Scenes (to Play Convincingly) in Shakespeare

The Street King [a.k.a. King Rikki]. Dir. James Gavin Bedford. Perf. Jon Seda and Mario López. 2002. DVD. Universal Studios, 2003.
The Street King has a wonderful introduction. Its version of Richard III's I.ii isn't on the same level. It's over-the-top, filled with shouting, and not terribly convincing.

Perhaps it's meant to be.

The scene is hard to play convincingly. Richard has, in Shakespeare, killed the husband and the father of the women to whom he's professing love. Though she starts off by spitting at him, she ends up swayed by his protestations.

It takes a long time to get there, but Rikki provides a version of this speech from Richard III:
Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?

Rikki's version? "Not bad for a first date."
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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
All material original to this blog is copyrighted: Copyright 2008-2039 (and into perpetuity thereafter) by Keith Jones.

The very instant that I saw you did / My heart fly to your service; there resides, / To make me slave to it; and, for your sake, / Am I this patient [b]log-man.

 —The Tempest