Free Richard III by William Shakespeare Page B

dark pegtop trousers, a long scruffy coat and an open-necked shirt.… This is Richard the alternative comedian … The head is shaven; the eyes pop; the lips stretch hungrily; the body distends like an air-cushion with a spring inside … The effect is grotesque and horribly funny; pure slapstick, when Richard squashes a dish of strawberries on his forehead to simulate a wound to persuade the Lord Mayor of the reality of the plot against him. 43
    The idea of Richard as “jester” or comedian was built into the costume design of the 1992 production, with David Troughton donning an “Elizabethan-looking doublet together with very odd short culottes,” giving Richard “a mischievous ‘Mr. Punch’ feel … not only was he a joker, he was an evil joker, bent on mass destruction for his own ends which made him very dangerous indeed—the funny man in red whom no-one suspects … smiling as he stabs his victims in the back.” 44
Cursing Women
    Richard’s lack of understanding with regard to women proves his downfall. Actor Henry Goodman noted that “there is a real misogyny about Richard as he fantasizes about love but is incapable of giving or receiving it. In his deformity he reasons … that love is something he will never receive because of the world’s love of beauty.” 45
    The cursing of Richard by his mother is often performed as the moment which undoes him, shakes him out of his bravura, unsettles him and seals his fate. For David Troughton’s Richard, the twisted relationship between mother and son was central to the character. His hatred of the world was derived from the Duchess of York’s complete absence of love for him. For his meeting with his mother in the fourth act he placed himself, with great awkwardness, on the ground, his head in her lap. Wanting her blessing he received only her curse. Director Steven Pimlott identified it as “a peculiarly terrible scene, a mother cursing her child in a way that is unique in Shakespeare.” Open-mouthed with horror (Troughton was influenced by Edvard Munch’s famous painting
The Scream
), Richard “hurled himself away from her and toward the crown which he had placed on the ground.” 46
    Anton Lesser described the devastating effect the mother’s curse had on his Richard:
    She needs to express the horror at what she has given birth to … to make it terminal. “I shall never speak to thee again.” … In our production Richard’s response was punctuated by his rhythmically wounding himself in the hand with his dagger. The idea I wanted to express was that he feels he must hurt, must mutilate himself because if he doesn’t he will kill his mother in his rage at what, in his eyes, she has been responsible for. 47
    The curse on Alan Howard’s Richard (1980) created a mental disturbance from which he never recovered: “His mother’s curse leaves him so shattered that he plays the next scene with Elizabeth in earnest, as though he might really find in her a new mother. From then on he is on the edge of madness.” 48
    The duchess’ lack of motherly love has an impact on how Richard relates to other women in the play. The “wooing” scene of Lady Anne reveals much but, often heavily cut in performance, is a particularly difficult scene to make convincing. Actor Anton Lesser explains:
    Richard must not be seen by Anne to be “acting.” The more she is confused about how genuine his feelings are, the moreunbalancing it will be for her … Richard bases his strategy on attack: everything she accuses him of he accepts, with the proviso that everything he has done he has done for her. He makes her, quite specifically, an “accessory” … producing a sense of guilt … she is forced into the belief that it was her body, her physicality, all that she as a devout Christian is trying to rise above, which provoked his behaviour. The idea we were aiming for was that guilt about her own sexuality, rather than any