How Richard III Made Me Not Hate Shakespeare

Creative Nonfiction, second place prize winner for Literary London essay contest.

Like every other American student, I was forced to read Shakespeare in high school. Romeo and Juliette was my first play. There’s no worse place to start with his plays than a tragedy about two teenagers who kill themselves after knowing each other for only three days. This tragedy angered me more knowing how classic authors have gotten away with arrestable plot offenses. Next was Macbeth, and I blame my negative experience on my sophomore English teacher. I watched the adaptation with Sir Patrick Stewart, along with reading haphazard packets of each act. The last play was King Lear. Had my senior year AP Literature teacher not forced us to read this play in class, I would have remembered none of it. I even wrote an impressive essay about the madness of King Lear, but I couldn’t tell you anything about my argument. I wish I could.

And that is the summary of my experience with Shakespeare before this summer. I was never taught how to read it, understand the historical significance, or even understand the characters he loved to create in his plays. So when I signed up for the Shakespeare class in London, I was nervous to say the least.

I doubted that my abilities for analyzing literature were limited because of the fact that I hadn’t taken one of those classes since my senior year of high school. I thought, how am I supposed to remember how to analyze complex texts, let alone Shakespeare, while also experiencing my first time abroad? I continued to ask myself this question until I decided the study abroad trip that made me want to attend Miami was more important. Whatever fears I had about succeeding in my classes abroad needed to be put to the side. This was an opportunity I would never have again.

For many students, myself included, studying abroad is their only chance to be immersed in a culture for more than a regular vacation. These six weeks felt like the longest and shortest ones of my life. I soaked up information like a sponge during the first week, listening to all our tour guides detail the rich history of different parts of the city. The pre-planned itinerary may have felt hectic at the time, but I appreciated how they introduced us to the many areas we would frequent during our program, including the Globe theater and places Shakespeare spent time during his active years in London. Stratford was also one of the places we visited, a trip that I will discuss in depth because I wouldn’t have enjoyed Richard III as much had we not seen it at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Each experience l had watching Shakespeare’s work, regardless of the production value, enhanced my understanding of his playwriting. But the one that changed my opinion of Shakespeare was Richard III.

After spending four weeks walking the busy streets of London, I was desperate for the fresh air of the English countryside. Growing up in an urban-suburban neighborhood made me miss the trips to the Ohio countryside filled with corn. Stratford-Upon-Avon wasn’t exactly the trip outside of London I envisioned, but I could have stayed there much longer than two days. The city is situated on a river, hence the name upon-Avon, meaning upon a river. The 1500s-style buildings give the city a charm like no other; the white and deep umber caressing the city corners. I loved how our tour guides tested us on which buildings were original and which ones had been built in the antique style of Shakespeare’s age. The city was also very quiet, something I didn’t realize I needed after listening to police sirens and loud patrons at night or in the early morning London hours. We trailed the city for the majority of the day, had a family-style dinner with our peers, and then it was time to see our third production of the program at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

For context, I loved watching Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe Theatre. The 1940s production aesthetic positioned the gender roles in an interesting light, and I’m a lover of 40s jazz, so I thought the production value was fabulous. But Much Ado is one of Shakespeare’s comedies, which I find hard to dislike. It’s light and fun and plays with the cultural expectations of its time.

The Tempest was the play I could have done without seeing, mainly because the original play is a hot mess of colonialism and gender expectations, but I don’t want to make this an analysis of Shakespeare’s works. The production value of this play was limited because of the small cast and location—a beautiful one, yet it didn’t capture the essence of Shakespeare’s writing as much as I’d hoped.

Anyway, back to my favorite play. The Royal Shakespeare Company building is gorgeous with red brick similar to the buildings on Miami’s campus. A tall column stands to the side of the entrance, allowing people to see the city from a bird’s eye view at their leisure. The acronym “RSC” is boldly placed above the entrance. I beamed at this when I picked up my ticket for the night’s performance. Unlike the Globe, which was an amazing experience, don’t misunderstand me, I didn’t have to stand for three and a half hours while holding my copy of the play in my tired hands. I’m thankful I was persuaded to be a “groundling” at the Globe, gaining the authentic experience of the audience in Shakespeare’s time. But Richard III was much better watching it in a traditional theatre seat.

The people I sat with also made the performance that much more enjoyable. It was the time in the program when everyone had chosen their groups of friends, the people they regularly spent time with, ate dinner with, and even made additional travel plans around other parts of England. We shared many laughs about the production and shocked glances when the actors deviated even slightly from the original script. I have fond memories of asking those sitting next to me which line we were at, rapidly scanning the lines of text while trying to listen to the performance.

But this could have happened during any of these productions. What made it so special for me was how I could sense people’s attention on the actor who played Richard. I knew our professor told us before the play started that this actor was disabled, just like Richard’s character, but I did some research afterward to see if there was a story behind his choice to become an actor who could represent the disabled community. As it turns out I was right. Arthur Hughes is the first actor in the RSC’s history to play Richard and also be a disabled actor. He has radial dysplasia, a birth defect that causes malformation of the forearm, wrist, and hand. In Hughes’ case, his right arm was much short than his left, and it seemed like he was missing his right thumb. It was amazing to see his performance of Richard compared to how Shakespeare wrote the character, giving him a shortened figure due to scoliosis. Hughes did a fantastic job representing the character’s struggles with a disability even though it wasn’t the same as the original. In most other instances I would have complained about the misrepresentation of the main character in the story, but because it was a Shakespeare play and not an adaptation of a novel or other media, I was okay with this casting decision. Hughes made me realize how interpretive Shakespeare’s plays can be. I had been told dozens of times how versatile his plays were, but being told something and seeing it in action make all the difference. I could finally understand the importance of Shakespeare’s work in the modern age, and why so many writers take inspiration from him.

The performance still had a few issues that didn’t sit well with me—don’t think I’d let Shakespeare off the hook because I enjoyed one of his plays. Because of Shakespeare’s lack of stage directions, he allows the director to make unconventional choices to surprise the audience. This includes the random kiss that happens between Richard and one of the ladies of the House of York. It felt very unnecessary and uncomfortable. And in regards to Richard’s representation in the production, I felt the complex issue of his disability wasn’t addressed enough for Hughes’ sake. It gave me a great paper to write for my Shakespeare class, but I would have rather had a better understanding of Hughes’ perspective rather than assuming that he thought villainizing people with disabilities was a correct choice.

I would never trade the experience of seeing Richard III in Stratford-upon-Avon this summer. When the theatre lights lowered, and the audience waited attentively for the actors to come on stage, the air in the room felt ecstatic, sitting in anticipation for who they would see walk out onto the stage. Then we were dazzled by beautiful costume designs, perfect reciting of Shakespeare’s lines, dramatic music, and solemn imagery reminiscent of World War I. It will be like no other production I see in my life and not because I doubt I’ll see many play productions in the future.

These four hours taught me the value of performed plays. Like I said earlier, my high school rarely showed us performed versions of Shakespeare while we read the plays, and if there was a live version, it was Americanized in ways that lacked clarity. It took me over four years to understand the importance of watching each character perform in a scene, speak their lines, and spill their soliloquies to the audience. Why did it take so long for me to learn this? Out of all his plays, Richard III taught me more than any of his others ever could. It successfully traveled through time to match the struggles of a modern person. It created a character who people can resonate with even if they are scared to do so. It helped me bond with people I’d only known for a couple of weeks. No other play had done the same thing for me. It took a four-hour trip into the English countryside for me to feel like my time in Britain had been fulfilled. I would hesitate to return to London’s bustling streets for a second time, but I would give anything to walk the streets of Stratford again.