I thought
my mother, and my brother York,
Would
long ere this have met us on the way:
-Prince
King Richard the Third Act
III, scene i Line 21
Okay, our second shot at Richard III, and today we can at
least make sense of what we’ve got. Thank Goodness!
If memory serves, the
first time we visited Richard III they were talking about killing a kid, or a
baby. I still don’t know what kid that was. This kid talking here (the Prince)
ends up in the Tower of London and gets killed with his brother, but that takes
place later than this scene. Lots of killing in Shakespeare plays (except the
comedies). So I left it up to you folks to figure out what kid got killed last
time. I didn’t hear from any of you, so I guess we’re gonna leave the identity
of that other kid a mystery for now.
This time I can tell you that this poor kid talking is the
presumptive king, but that good old Uncle Dick (Richard III) is going to be
taking the crown for his own. And this kid, I’m not sure how old he is, doesn’t
see it coming. Oh his mother does (which is likely why she hasn’t met them on
the way), but he doesn’t. I like the innocence and naïvete in this kid’s line.
I think Will does a real good job with this. I got the same sense reading
Arthur talking in King John (see 8/21 post). I don’t think they actually had
kids playing any parts in these plays back in the day. I think men played all
the roles; men, women, and children (and probably the occasional wild animal).
Now there’s a lot of people in these plays, especially the
history plays. I find it a bit difficult to keep track of all of the characters
and who’s on whose side. But I’m guessing that for the most part the play going
public had a sense of who was who in their political history. Richard III was
king about 110 years before Shakespeare wrote this play. So that would be like
us today seeing a show about Teddy Roosevelt. Well, I’m thinking that most of
us aren’t TR experts, but just the same, we’d probably know important stuff,
like nephews that Teddy killed to get to be president, (if he had done that).
Killing nephews, and brothers, and other miscellaneous people is something that
ends up getting remembered. And that’s why I’ve decided to give up reading the
news.
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