RichaRd iii - Stratford Festival

The Triumph of Evil
costuMe Designs for richarD by Peter hartwell.
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Ideas and Insights
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“And so they said that these matters be
Kings’ games, as it were,
Stage plays, and for the most part played
upon scaffolds.
And they that wise be would meddle no farther.”
– From Sir Thomas More’s
History of King Richard III
More wrote his history in 1513, twenty-eight years
after the death of the historical Richard, and long,
long before Shakespeare took up the story. Two
things struck me about More’s quote: one, that he
had already picked up the theme of theatricality,
and two, that his pun on scaffold was even more
meaningful then than now.
The earliest meaning of scaffold was a platform
where a performance of a mystery or morality play
might occur; its meaning as a place for executions
came later. Richard’s theatrical ancestors, the Vice
characters of those medieval plays, performed their
acts on those very scaffolds as they went about
their stated mission, to destroy virtue wherever they
found it. In order to do so, they would do anything,
assume any role, in order to suborn the natural
order and attempt the triumph of evil.
The great appeal of Vice, the appeal of the
villain, was so strong that this character survived
theatrically long after his pallid cousins Virtue
and Honesty and Plaindealing had faded into
the theatrical mists of time; in fact, his popularity
with audiences assured his survival well into the
Elizabethan era in the guise of such characters
as Richard and Iago and Don John (in Much Ado
About Nothing).
I believe that it is this theatrical heritage that
provides the character of Richard and the play
he shows up in with so much of its appeal. He
is not just a villain; he is The Villain as Actor,
willing to assume any role to achieve his ends.
He is an actor, playing an actor, sharing a secret
with his audience: “I am not what I appear to
be.” My second favourite quote concerning
Richard comes from the Polish critic Jan Kott:
“Richard is not; he just pretends to be.”
In small but significant flashes throughout the
play, Shakespeare appears to be semaphoring
a message to us. It comes and goes amidst the
twists and turns of political manoeuvring, amongst
the emotional turmoil of lies and manipulation,
throughout the emotional wreckage caused by
death and destruction. It is a simple message, but
as Shakespeare sensed, it bears repeating:
“All that is required for the triumph of evil is for
good people to do nothing.”
Miles Potter
Director
costuMe sKetch for richarD by Miles Potter.