Richard III (1699 Play) - Censorship

Censorship

The adaptation started with a scandal. The entire first act of the play was censored and consequently not performed on stage. However, this censorship only referred to the actual events on stage but not to the written text. The script of Richard III was fully printed and included all censored lines and words. The visualisation on stage was thought to create parallels to the actual life in England. The spectators might become deeply involved in the action on stage because of the contemporary costumes which made scenes look like real life. Furthermore, the showing of brutal scenes was feared to have a bewildering effect on the audience. Another reason for the censorship lies in the fear that the rewritten first act might show parallels to James II and may help to create sympathy for him. The political fear behind this accusation is very clear, but the idea that Cibber used the play to strengthen Jacobite ideas is far-fetched.

Cibber wrote in his work “An apology for the life of Colley Cibber” the following lines with regard to censorship:

But the Master of the Revels, who then licensed all plays for the Stage, assisted this reformation with a more zealous severity than ever. He would strike out whole scenes of a vicious or immoral character, though it were visibly shewn to be reformed, or punished; a severe instance of this kind falling upon my self, may be an excuse for my relating it: when Richard the Third (as I altered it from Shakespeare) came from his hands to the Stage, he expunged the whole first act, without sparing a line of it. This extraordinary stroke of a Sic volo occasioned my applying to him for the small indulgence of a speech or two, that the other four acts might limp on, with a little less absurdity! No! he had no leisure to consider what might be separately inoffensive.

The audience did not rise against the methods of the office of the Master of Revels. Society was used to accept that someone would decide on what they were allowed to see and what would better remain in the dark. The plot which was allowed to be staged may have been cut short by the Masters of Revels but at the same time the playwrights were able to at least publish their work and ensure a future recognition of their ideas and thoughts.

The prohibition to stage the play entirely caused a total failure of the play as well as a financial disaster for Drury Lane Theatre in the first years after the premier. However, the adaptation did not suffer of being a failure for too long. Only about a decade later the play became a tremendous success.