Play Review: Richard II had beautiful language and minimal plot. The plot wasn't bad, it just wasn't riveting, and most anything of substance happened off-stage. The writing was beautifully metaphorical and poetic, which is fitting for the history of a man more suited to be a poet than a king. Richard has such beautiful, long speeches, that he is the linchpin of the play (and I assume a challenge for any actor -- I'd love to see a woman play the role, though there are three interesting female roles). Given that this is Shakespeare, I'm sure that there are many complex theories by people with too much time on their hands. But Shakespeare was aiming for something simpler. Richard II is about a young man, wrestling with his identity, who simultaneously believes and doubts he is truly ruling by divine right: "The breath of worldly men cannot depose/ The deputy elected by the Lord." Raised as a king and surrounded by flattery, he believes he can do no wrong (in the mode of: well, if the king does it, that means it's not illegal). Being appointed by God, he can be as high-handed as he wants, cruel as he wants, to disagree is to blaspheme: the rebels "break their faith to God as well as us." When Richard wants John of Gaunt dead, he seems to speak directly to heaven: "Now put it, God, in the physician's mind/ To help him to his grave immediately!" But he's plagued by uncertainty: "I live with bread like you, feel want,/ Taste grief, need friends ... How can you say to me I am a king?" He is merciful at times, wants to do right at times, doesn't know what he wants to do at times. As the kids say, he's conflicted. In part, Shakespeare portrays Richard II as just an ordinary man, who became a king. A man with no special qualities to make him a king, certainly not a good king. Richard notes about the future Henry IV, that "[we] observed his courtship of the common people,/ How he did seem to dive into their hearts." This is a mystery to Richard, but he rarely uses his divine appointment to make himself act more nobly. Instead it's an excuse for ignoble conduct, he does not do justice but injustice. A mistake would be to conflate Shakespeare's Richard with the historical king -- so much is left out and discarded that it all the more shows what Shakespeare was trying to do here, paring away the irrelevant and only keeping what is central to the story he wants to tell: to go deep within Richard, to dig into his personality, to show his feelings. Perhaps not very masculine for the time. For such a seemingly too simple play, Richard II is enjoyable and invites closer reading. [4★]
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