It’s very rarely that I feel like a rehearsal process flies by, but in the case of Rocket City Shakespeare’s Richard III, I definitely feel that way. It's hard to believe we open exactly one week from today. In honor of these upcoming performances (August 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, & 15) I wanted to share my character sketches (Thanks Paul Houghtaling for instilling this practice into my bones!!) of my two more talkative characters, Queen Elizabeth & Richmond, with you lovelies. Obviously, ladies first… Elizabeth Woodville was the medieval definition of femininity. Unlike many women of her time, she used her femininity to rise to remarkable heights. As a commoner, widow, and mother of two young boys, she married the young York king, Edward IV, in a secret ceremony. (Girl...) No one is quite sure how they got together, but one legend has her meeting him under an oak tree to supposedly ask him to return her dower lands from her first marriage to her. (I think we can all agree, nothing is sexier than land disputes.) When Elizabeth was crowned queen, she quickly went about marrying off her own extensive family to the most prominent landowners in England. After all, it would have looked pathetic if the queen’s family remained simple country squires after such an impressive rise to power. Country shabby chic wasn’t popular on Pinterest in 1440. During all of this, her husband's army killed a few prominent lords, including the Earl of Warwick, a man known as "The Kingmaker," the old Lancastrian King Henry VI who most likely had a stroke he never recovered from, & his own brother George, the Duke of Clarence (Turns out you totally can't hire a sorcerer to foretell your brother's death and plot with the King of France to steal his throne and expect him to be cool with it.). At some point during all of THIS Sturm und Drang, she and her husband had a cool 12 children. #Blessed If you’re historically inclined, Elizabeth Woodville is the maternal grandmother of Henry VIII, the great-grandmother of King Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I (Perhaps you’ve heard of her?), and the great-great-grandmother of Mary, Queen of Scots. Through her daughter, Elizabeth of York, she is the ancestor of every English monarch since Henry VIII and every Scottish monarch since James V of Scotland. NBD, right? Because I’m a history nerd and can only write so many cover letters before my eyes start to cross, I’ve jumped into researching her life over the past few months. Under the guise of research and character development, I read anything about the Rivers family & the War of the Roses I could get my hands on & indulged in a little bit of silliness via the entire The White Queen STARZ series. It's fictional, but inspired by actual events. My favorite power couple, Margaret Beauford & Lord Stanley make a strong appearance (Shakespeare sadly glosses over them in his story.) & Max Irons plays a beautiful King Edward IV until Hair & Makeup decide to have him in a beard at the end. All of this (fluff & non) has been helpful in forming this character, but at the end of the day, I have to play Elizabeth as truthful to the woman Shakespeare brought to life on the page. His Queen is decidedly different from the actual woman (or at least from what I can infer having never met her), but one fact holds true, she’s pretty damn extraordinary. I think the Queen’s strength is often looked over because of how much she laments throughout the play. Sista-friend has some world class meltdowns, but hey – her beloved husband dies, her brother and son are beheaded, her heirs become “The Princes in the Tower,” she has to send one son away to Henry Tudor’s ragtag court… Need I continue? She’d have to be a psychopath not to dissolve, & yet I don’t think she ever completely loses herself to her grief. She comes close, but she manages to really pull some strength through her anger and loss in the behemoth that is Act 4, Scene 4. In the 6th longest scene in Shakespeare’s canon, Richard tries to convince Elizabeth to let him marry his niece, her daughter, Elizabeth of York. It's eerily reminiscent of the fiery Act I, Scene 2 where Richard convinces Lady Anne to marry him. At this point, his wife Anne has succumbed to illness. Bless her heart. Richard spends more time wheedling and cajoling Queen Elizabeth than he does any other person in the play, male or female. Clearly, Shakespeare’s Queen has nerve. The dynamic between these two players vacillates between dismissive, sarcastic, furious, and placating. My favorite moment in the entire scene comes after Richard’s "Look, what is done cannot be now amended" monologue when Elizabeth counters with, “What were I best to say? Her father’s brother would be her lord?” Richard is an oratory powerhouse working at the top of his game, and yet she still refutes him. Plus, woman or not, disagreeing with the man you suspect may have signed your children's death warrants is pretty badass. One of my biggest beefs with Elizabeth was reconciling the decision she makes at the end of Act 4 to the woman I viewed her as. Why does she agree to go and get her daughter for Richard? Is she exhausted? Does Richard break her down with his “honey words?” This is the last thing we see Queen Elizabeth do, but it's not the last we hear of her daughter. We know Elizabeth of York ends up marrying Richmond (and having a psychopath son in King Henry VIII if you're still trackin'). So what gives? I tend to follow the lead of director Mandy Hughes on the general rule of "No Subtext in Shakespeare," so I believe we can infer from the text everything we need to know. Elizabeth Woodville isn't 100% truthful in what she tells Richard. Lets break it down, shall we? Queen Elizabeth is a political beast. She knows the game and ultimately she plays it well enough to end up on the winning side (or at least the most winning you can be after your sons are killed by your brother-in-law). Who, besides Lord Stanley, can say that at the end of Richard III? She knows going in to 4.4 that the king is going to get what he wants. He always does. She as much as says so in her first appearance when she tells Richard it's the king who suspects he's been lying to him, not her. Elizabeth Woodville would have known this political system as a Queen and as a subject, just as Shakespeare himself would have. "Shall I forget myself to be myself?" she asks. "Yet thou didst kill my children," she reminds herself. "I go. Write to me very shortly and you shall understand from me her mind," she concludes. I think she agrees to Richard's demands because she's done fighting with him. It's ultimately as simple as that. Fight or flight. She still doesn't give up complete control when she acquiesces to his request. There is to be no direct communication between Richard and Elizabeth of York. It all goes through the Queen. Subtle, but important. Is she tired? Sure. Does she want her daughter to marry him? No. Can we imagine reasonably without getting all subtext-y woo-woo that she probably peaces out of Act 4 to write a few letters to the "enemy" Richmond's camp to explore all her options? Maybe. Probably. In real life, yeah, most definitely. Elizabeth Woodville puts up an impressive fight for her dynasty, one that would end with the death of the childless Queen Elizabeth I, eleven years after Richard III was estimated to have been written. Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba…
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Lo & beholdRunning on iced coffee & iambic pentameter. Unabashed worshipper of the holy trinity – Barbra, Bernadette, and Sutton. Archives
May 2017
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