The well-known tragedy about the rise and fall of the cruel English monarch Richard III. by William Shakespeare will be performed by the Moravian-Silesian National Theater with Petr Panzenberger in the lead role. The production, directed by Ivan Krejčí, premieres this Saturday, January 13, at the Jiří Myron Theater in Ostrava, with the next reruns on January 18 and 23.
The drama from Shakespeare’s early creative period returns to the local stage after 60 years, this time translated by Martin Hilský. He will also be a guest of Saturday’s premiere, before which he will take part in an hour-long dramaturgical introduction in the ceremonial hall, confirmed Šárka Swiderová, the spokesperson for the scene. The capacity of the hall is limited.
A game from the so-called period wars of the roses tells of manipulation, intrigue and unbridled murder. It shows the rise of the reign of terror and dark dictatorship of Richard III, who was King of England from 1483 until his death just two years later. In this character, the playwright “created one of the most famous villains of all time, and apparently mainly thanks to Shakespeare’s performance, until recently the world thought only negatively of the last king of the Plantagenet family,” mentions the theater spokesperson.
The charismatic duke, who cold-bloodedly exploits the malignant ambitions and desires of the people around him, was portrayed by Shakespeare as a disfigured, hunchbacked cripple, a tyrant and usurper who also obtained the throne by murdering his two nephews. At the same time, however, he provided the anti-hero with a deft tongue and wit.
During the war, the protagonist served his brother well by murdering and eliminating the inconvenient for him. Because of these crimes, his brother is now king. The war is over and those it brought to power are celebrating peace. However, peace has not settled in Richard’s soul, so he continues to pit his rivals against each other, play power games and eliminate all who stand in his way to power, states annotation.
The stage was designed by Martin Šimek, costumes by Marta Roszkopfová and music composed by Ondřej Švandrlík. In addition to Petr Panzenberger, Sára Erlebachová, Petra Kocmanová, Kateřina Breiská or Vladimír Čapka act in the news.
Petr Panzenberger in the role of Richard III. | Photo: Martin Kusyn
Shakespeare’s drama including the famous statement “Horses! Kingdom for horses!”, which Richard III. utters at the end of a lost battle, the former Ostrava State Theater performed only between 1962 and 1964 in the title role with Jiří Adamíra. He was alternated by Radim Koval, who also directed. The world’s most famous stage and film representative of Richard III. he became British actor Laurence Olivier.
Richard III was the last English monarch to die in battle. He fell in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth. It marked the end of the bloody War of the Roses, and Henry VII, the first Tudor king, sat on the English throne. “From a historical point of view, the defeat of Richard III at Bosworth and the rise of the Tudors are considered to be the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of a new era, which is called early modern or Renaissance,” wrote Martin Hilský, a professor of English literature, in the several-year-old book Shakespeare’s England.
According to him, there are still several interpretations of the era of Richard III, but the followers of Shakespeare’s view are now in the minority. Apparently, the monarch really committed some murders and had the nobles executed without a trial. “However, it has never been proven that he killed Henry VI in a prison cell, and above all, there is no evidence of the murder of two little princes, sons of King Edward IV, because of which Richard gained the reputation of a demon and a monster,” the Englishman explained in an interview for Aktuálně.cz.
He considers Shakespeare’s Richard III. de facto for warning against tyranny and abuse of power. “It’s a play about evil, about the mechanism of power, and that’s why it’s still so mesmerizing for audiences today. When you notice in that play how Richard III fights for power, how, for example, he manipulates the townspeople to recognize him as king, you can there to find common features with some of today’s election campaigns,” added Hilský.
They caught the attention of the world public in 2013 when they were under a car park in the English city of Leicester found remains of Richard III. Scientists from the University of Leicester subjected them to a series of tests and DNA analysis. “Beyond any reasonable doubt this is the skeleton of King Richard III,” said the university’s chief archaeologist Richard Buckley, who led the project.
