Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?

Car Park Man.

Tom Hiddleston, in an interview regarding playing Loki in (Sir Ken's!) Thor  and The Avengers, said that "every villain is a hero in his own mind." He's obviously following the old actors' adage about not judging the character(s) you play, and this is especially true when you're the "bad guy." Shakespeare is often--and correctly--accused of demonizing the non-Tudor King Richard III, in what is essentially a propagandistic move to stay in the good graces of the reigning Queen Elizabeth at the time. But Shakespeare still clearly understood that a truly effective villain is one with pathos. Without that soupçon of vulnerability and sympathy, a truly great villain is incomplete--little more than a mindless, faceless cloud of smoke. Or a polar bear. Or whatever. Fucking Lost.

And so it is with Richard (and of course, Loki, because, what else would you expect from Sir Ken?). As the audience, we are forced to consider whether Richard's deformity is a manifestation of his evil ambition, or, if he would have these ambitions at all if he were not so "rudely stamp'd." Is he so shaped due to his inherent evil or has a life of being bullied for his outward appearance hardened his heart? The  curious thing is, Richard could care less what we feel, though he presents it both ways. He certainly does not judge himself... at least not in this play. 

My favorite bits in his 3 Henry VI speech are the the ones that express his fondest dreams. The imagery he invokes is so crisp and precise that we realize the tragedy of such a poetic and clever mind employed for harm rather than charity. Standing on a promontory, gazing longingly upon a far-off goal, fighting his way through a treacherous forest of thorns, and the heavy mountain upon his back implies that his struggle is against Nature more than anything else. His watchwork mind is strained, and requires a challenge to prevent his absolute boredom. 

His ennui is transformed by the journey of his speech, as indicated by the "characters" that populate his mind. At the start, he lists the banal family members who stand between him and the crown. He disdains Edward's sinful lust while himself committing covetous thoughts. Between this mention of Edward, his brother Clarence, Henry, and the young Edward, Richard only brings to mind faceless whores and soldiers and his own unnamed mother. At the end, however, Richard reveals his larger-than-life heroes: the Homeric Greeks Nestor, Ulysses, Sinon, and Proteus. He describes their skills and achievements with an almost childish confidence that he can outstrip them all in deed and zeal. Nestor had great persuasive power, Ulysses tricked many monsters and men on his voyages, Sinon convinced the Trojans to accept the Greek-filled horse, and Proteus was immortal and took many animal forms to suit his needs. Richard reveals his ultimate aggressive arrogance in finally setting down the infamous Machiavelli as a mere student to his professorial expertise in deception. 

The relish in Richard's voice becomes so obvious by the end that it seems almost impossible to find sympathy in our hearts for this murderer and usurper. And yet, by virtue of being the most fascinating and entertaining of all the characters on stage, we guiltily cling to our worser parts and secretly cheer his calculations, if not his actions. 

I brought up Loki not only because I love Hiddles and I just watched Iron Man 3 the other day and so direly await the next Thor film. I'm asking that you trust this raging fangirl as far as is possible to trust a raging fangirl, but... the connections are apparent. There's a reason why the filmic Loki is so beloved by theatre-going audiences as a character: he's another in a long line of successfully sinister villains that serve as a magnet held to our moral compasses. I'm not saying that Shakespeare invented the archetype of an ambiguous villain, but he unerringly moulded some of the best and most enduring. Iago, Macbeth, Edmund, Shylock, Claudius, Richard, etc... they're all their own archetypes now. 

I also wished to neatly bundle up my project by stitching the end back to Sir Kenneth Branagh, whose work spurred my initial motivation to embark upon this intimidating goal. He inspired me at every moment that I felt I'd crumble, filling my ears with mellifluous words (and providing the all-important eye-candy) and passion that prevented detachment and despair. But I credit the fangirl inside me for carrying me through, proving that all these years of practiced obsession and compulsion is good for something after all. 

Stick with me, however, as I have decided that this is not, nor it cannot, be the end.

King Henry VI, Part III, Act III, Sc. II

Gloucester: Ay, Edward will use women honourably.

Would he were wasted, marrow, bones and all,

That from his loins no hopeful branch may spring,

To cross me from the golden time I look for!

And yet, between my soul's desire and me--

The lustful Edward's title buried--

Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,

And all the unlook'd for issue of their bodies,

To take their rooms, ere I can place myself:

A cold premeditation for my purpose!

Why, then, I do but dream on sovereignty;

Like one that stands upon a promontory,

And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,

Wishing his foot were equal with his eye,

And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,

Saying, he'll lade it dry to have his way:

So do I wish the crown, being so far off;

And so I chide the means that keeps me from it;

And so I say, I'll cut the causes off,

Flattering me with impossibilities.

My eye's too quick, my heart o'erweens too much,

Unless my hand and strength could equal them.

Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard;

What other pleasure can the world afford?

I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap,

And deck my body in gay ornaments,

And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.

O miserable thought! and more unlikely

Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns!

Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb:

And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,

She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe,

To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub;

To make an envious mountain on my back,

Where sits deformity to mock my body;

To shape my legs of an unequal size;

To disproportion me in every part,

Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp

That carries no impression like the dam.

And am I then a man to be beloved?

O monstrous fault, to harbour such a thought!

Then, since this earth affords no joy to me,

But to command, to cheque, to o'erbear such

As are of better person than myself,

I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,

And, whiles I live, to account this world but hell,

Until my mis-shaped trunk that bears this head

Be round impaled with a glorious crown.

And yet I know not how to get the crown,

For many lives stand between me and home:

And I,--like one lost in a thorny wood,

That rends the thorns and is rent with the thorns,

Seeking a way and straying from the way;

Not knowing how to find the open air,

But toiling desperately to find it out,--

Torment myself to catch the English crown:

And from that torment I will free myself,

Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.

Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,

And cry 'Content' to that which grieves my heart,

And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,

And frame my face to all occasions.

I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;

I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;

I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,

Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,

And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.

I can add colours to the chameleon,

Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,

And set the murderous Machiavel to school.

Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?

Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.

A cold premeditation for my purpose!

Nothing like an unseasonal cold to cut you down for the count in the Shakespeare recitation department. I should consider myself lucky that I didn't get sick until the week after I reached my goal of learning at least one speech from every play. At 71 lines, the crowning oration is the longest of the bunch (so far... who knows, I may embark on something even more intimidating in the future!), and has the superlative of being the longest soliloquy in all of Shakespeare. It tested my every skill and served very nicely as a kind of "thesis" to pass this class of self-imposed madness. But best of all, it's delivered by everyone's favorite car park hunchback: Richard Gloucester in King Henry VI Part III!

The first time I watched Sir Laurence of Olivier's 1955 film, I was intimately familiar with the "Winter" speech, and was quickly scandalized by the strange lines shoehorned into it. Scarcely any of the original Act I, Sc. I speech is used in the film because its main purpose is to give the audience that "Previously on War of the Roses..." spiel and Larry chose to insert the last scene of KH6 P3 up front, rendering Richard's most famous words superfluous. Oh Larry, you always were a jazz musician with Shakespeare.

Little did I realize that those extra tidbits (which are especially juicy, so I completely sympathize with Larry's wish to use them) were from an even longer speech I would later mouth with much delight. Indeed, it contains some arguably meatier and more poetic stuff than his more famous speech. There's more determination to be a villain and hating on his family. More descanting on deformity and laying of plots. A Super-Sized speech, in every way.

Of course, it's one of those soliloquies that can be read in so many ways at each of its turns that every time I say it, I find a new nuance that can be tweaked, a switch to be toggled that can affect a line down the river. If a non-actor can recognize that, I imagine it's a delirious goldmine for real performers. For example, Richard asks what pleasures he could possibly find in life:

I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap
And deck my body with gay ornaments
And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.
O miserable thought! And more unlikely 
Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns!

Personally, I prefer a Sassy Drag Queen Richard milking this as sarcastically as acting allows, but there's certainly room for a more Lugubrious Alan Rickman Richard whose words drip like black molasses from his mouth. And everything in between.

Another ambiguous section involves the torment Richard endures:

And I--like one lost in a thorny wood,
That rents the thorns, and is rent with the thorns,
Seeking a way, and straying from the way,
Not knowing how to find the open air
But toiling desperately to find it out--
Torment myself to catch the English Crown;

Is Richard being sarcastic again? The preceding lines hint at such a reading: "And yet I know not how to get the crown/For many lives stand between me and home." We know he knows what horrible things he needs to get the crown, after all. But again, this could be delivered with equally believable heart-wrenching anger at nature itself, for thrusting him into this situation in which he feels he has no other choice.

Throughout this speech, Richard's character is in that quantum Schrodinger's Cat state--vacillating between being sympathetic and monstrous. It's a playground of emotion for performance. I could go on.

And I shall. Next week, some Greek mythology! I'll also fangirl over Richard's use of imagery and figure out what the hell to do with myself now that this is over (or is it?).