The Poetic Elegance of Richard II

In her TLS review of the Royal Shakespeare production of Richard II, Katherine Duncan-Jones points out that the play is “the most consistently poetic of all Shakespeare’s plays,” without any speeches in prose, even from Welshmen, gardeners, and grooms.

The effect is comically to emphasize the departures from iambic pentameter: “Though probably not consciously noticed either by actors or audience, the metrical beat provides the equivalent of a basso continuo. It also contributes to the surprisingly and pleasingly comic effect of the texts rare deviations into spondaic phrases, such as the Duke of Yorks comically imperious command: ’ Gve m m bots ,’ or, in the following scene, the new King Henrys exasperated appeal to Yorks Duchess (Marty Cruickshank): ’ God unt, stnd p! ,’ at once striking and inescapably comic.”

Duncan-Jones likes David Tennant’s performance in the title role (“consummate brilliance”) and she is convinced by the play that Tennant, playing the sacred king all the way to the gilded fingernails, “can do camp.” She also likes the beauty of this production:

“Many current directors seem determined to shun beauty of a traditional kind harmonious music; elegant and colourful period costumes; gracefully varied physical disposition of figures on the stage. I have developed a strong antipathy to the muddy and grungy look that prevails in so many recent and current productions, whether of plays or of operas. Here, in contrast, as we take our seats we listen to piercingly lovely religious chanting, which is soon counterbalanced by a consort of loud trumpets from the other side of the stage (excellent compositions by Paul Englishby). Meanwhile, we gaze at a delicate grisaille back projection of a Gothic cathedral.”