tomorrow's post won't be about Richard II, I promise

[angevin2]

Day #2: Your favorite character

Yesterday's post, I trust, makes my answer to this question fairly obvious, doesn't it? I suppose it doesn't have to, since there are texts I like in which I don't like any of the characters, and Richard II is one of those plays where nobody who has a significant amount to say is tremendously admirable, but I dunno

Comments

[ext_104773]

So it's 4 in the morning and I'm up feeding the baby, but I what I got out of this is that Richard has a big butt.

[angevin2]

That's what I identify with most of all.

[tekalynn]

I've always had a sneaking fondness for Edmund. His "Yet Edmund was beloved" always gets me.

[murasaki_1966]

Me too.

[angevin2]

Thank you so much! I have to admit I felt all wibbly when you said I had the right voice for it. &hearts

[17catherines]

and the things he says are invariably gorgeous, which I love but do not really identify with exactly, because I just babble

I think you underrate yourself. I very much enjoy your babblings, and have certainly seen you achieve gorgeousness on more than one occasion (besides, you don't know what Richard sounds like when he is off-stage - perhaps he babbles too, and Shakespeare just chose his best and most beautiful lines for the play...).

[angevin2]

The historical Richard was described as "abrupt and stammering in his speech," actually. Not that that is relevant exactly, but I've always found that rather endearing.

(The passage it comes from also describes him as round-faced and blond with fair skin but a tendency to flush easily, and when historians refer to it as unflattering I always go HEY WAIT A MINUTE...)

(also, thanks :) )

[17catherines]

Oh, that is nice. That's one of the things that first drew me to history - the way that sometimes you read a chronicle or a letter or something else that someone wrote centuries ago, and you suddenly see that person alive and vivid and just as real as anyone walking around today (and, in fact, much like the people walking around today. The past may be a foreign country, but people are still people, and there is something faintly comforting about this).

I am still greatly indebted to the year 11 history teacher who brought in all sorts of primary sources including the Ems telegram - both before and after Bismarck's editing job - and suddenly made history into something that was right next to me, rather than at the remove of a textbook.

[arcadiaego]

I know I tell you this every year or so but you made me love this play.

[angevin2]

I'm glad! It deserves love.

[murasaki_1966]

I love Richard II. I have Sir John Geilgud in CD doing speeches from it. Richard's speeches are some of the most wonderful self-pity ever written. "Down, down I come: like glistening Phaeton,. Wanting the manage of unruly jades" and the wonderful "How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face", only to be met by Bolingbroke's dismissive "The shadow of your sorrow has destroyed teh shadow of your face". I saw Mark Rylance in this role at the Globe eight years ago, and it was great, but I wish I'd seen the production with Jeremy Irons.

[angevin2]

I have that CD too! Possibly. At least, I have one or two Richard II speeches from Gielgud, and they are amazing. And I loved Rylance's Richard even though he was absolutely nothing at all like the one in my head, and you have to be a pretty brilliant actor to do that and still pull it off.

The one I wish I'd seen, although it was a decade before I was born, was the one with Ian McKellen. *sigh*

[murasaki_1966]

The CD is from the BBC and is called All the world's a stage and has speeches from BBC productions of Shakespeare. Judi Dench, Olivier, Gielgud(Richard 2, Much Ado), Richard Burton (St Crispin's Day speech), etc. I play it regularly. If I spot a copy of the MCkellen Richard 2 I'll let you know. After all I have McKellen's Lear, Macbeth, and Richard 3 (known around here as "Tricky Dick"), and four versions of King Lear. I am just sad.