So Saturday the
wife left me to go over her friend’s house, leaving me alone in the big
mansion. We put the little ones to sleep
a little after eight, then, after giving her a passive aggressive guilt trip, I
settled down to do what I really wanted to do:
Watch the
early-80s BBC production of Shakespeare’s The
Tragedy of Richard III, on DVD.
Four years ago I
went through a mini-Shakespeare phase where I found the perfect way to learn
and enjoy the Bard: read the play, then re-read it while watching the BBC DVDs
of it, most of which can be found at your local library. I did a half-dozen plays this way, until I
was forced to stop, having just started a new job that demanded a bit extra of
my attention.
On a whim last
week, looking for something fresh and poetic, I thumbed through an omnibus of
Shakespeareana from the Great Books I have in the basement. I landed on Richard III. The next day I
saw a battered paperback copy of that play for sale at a library so I took it
for a sign from ye gods, purchased it, and immediately began reading it.
Which brings us
to the BBC production of the play.
Suffice it to say, it is loooooooooooooooong. I read that it is Shakespeare’s second- and
third-longest play (depending on the source, I guess). The DVD is 228 minutes long, which is almost Ben-Hur-ian in duration. Following along in the paperback, I managed
only the first act, a little over an hour invested, with a short cupcake break
somewhere in the middle.
Like all the
plays, it’s good. Real good. (“Good” – how’s that for an adjective, eh
Shakespeare?) Made those lines jump off
the page, brought out new tensions I had not seen alone in the sentences of
iambic pentameter. Took a while for the
actor who played Richard to meet my approval, as my brain image of the
character was more fiendish, grotesque, and moustache-twisting. But after fifteen minutes, this actor, Ron
Cook, has now been firmly established to me as the evil, scheming, usurping
would-be leader of England.
Now – to seek
out three more hours in which to finish it!
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