Performance
The earliest certain performance occurred on 16 or 17 November 1633, when Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria watched it on the Queen's birthday. The Diary of Philip Henslowe records a popular play he calls Buckingham, performed in December 1593 and January 1594, which might have been Shakespeare's play.
Colley Cibber produced the most successful of the Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare with his version of Richard III, at Drury Lane starting in 1700. Cibber himself played the role till 1739, and his version was on stage for the next century and a half. It contained the line "Off with his head; so much for Buckingham" – possibly the most famous Shakespearean line that Shakespeare did not write. The original Shakespearean version returned in a production at Sadler's Wells Theatre in 1845.
Most film versions of Richard III feature actors who had previously played Richard on stage. The two best-known film versions are those with Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen. McKellen's film is directly based on an earlier stage production set in a Nazified England of the 1930s, which toured Europe for six years to sell-out crowds prior to being shortly thereafter adapted to film. McKellen wrote the screenplay for his film version, although he did not direct it. Olivier played Richard on stage for quite a few years in the 1940s before making a film of it in 1955. His film performance, if not the production as a whole, is heavily based on his earlier stage rendition. The Al Pacino film Looking for Richard is a documentary of rehearsals of specific scenes from the play, and a meditation on the play's significance. Pacino had played the role on stage 15 years earlier. In 2011, well-known film actor Kevin Spacey starred in an Old Vic production which subsequently toured the United States, directed by well-known stage and film director Sam Mendes. No plans for a film version have been announced. Spacey had played the role of Richard's henchman, the Duke of Buckingham, in the Pacino film.
Read more about this topic: Richard III (play)
Famous quotes containing the word performance:
“Tennis is more than just a sport. It’s an art, like the ballet. Or like a performance in the theater. When I step on the court I feel like Anna Pavlova. Or like Adelina Patti. Or even like Sarah Bernhardt. I see the footlights in front of me. I hear the whisperings of the audience. I feel an icy shudder. Win or die! Now or never! It’s the crisis of my life.”
—Bill Tilden (1893–1953)
“The child to be concerned about is the one who is actively unhappy, [in school].... In the long run, a child’s emotional development has a far greater impact on his life than his school performance or the curriculum’s richness, so it is wise to do everything possible to change a situation in which a child is suffering excessively.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“Having an identity at work separate from an identity at home means that the work role can help absorb some of the emotional shock of domestic distress. Even a mediocre performance at the office can help a person repair self-esteem damaged in domestic battles.”
—Faye J. Crosby (20th century)