Sept. 11th Blog 4: Richard II

Studying Richard II for the past two weeks has been enlightening. I never thought I would understand even a little of what is was about. Before I even read Richard II, I thought I would just need to know enough to get through the two weeks of studying it in class, enough to get through any questions Dr. Plough asked about the play. Although that’s what I felt at first when I did read Richard II, it was not that bad, I actually enjoyed reading it.

In class when we acted out some of the scenes, I learned even more. I felt like with people acting out the scenes, it gave me new insight into the play. Dr. Plough told us to not just read the parts we were acting out but to put passion into it and if one character was angry or dying, then show it. I believe this is one reason that I learned more because when I just read the play, I did not shout or scream, show any kinds of emotions like the characters in the play so when we did this in class, it seems so much more alive.

When we did the part where King Richard is fighting off the people trying to murder him, Stephanie was playing King Richard and at first she was raising her voice and then when King Richard gets stabbed by Exton, she lowers her voice and sort of stutters like she is dying, this made me envision King Richard lying on the floor dying of his wounds. But when I just read it, I just seen him standing there, holding where he was bleeding and when she read that part and what I envisioned, changed how I saw the whole play. We acted out ACT 4 SC. 1 where everyone starts throwing down gages and challenging each other. I was Surrey and threw down my gage which was a book that Dr. Plough had for us as our gages and Angela was Fitzwater, the person Surrey was challenging, and she had to pick up the gage/book. When she picked it up, she had passion and showed how it was meant to be, she picked it up like okay, you want to fight, lets do this.

I also want to talk about a line that I really liked in ACT 3 SC. 2, line 105, King Richard says, “The worst is death, and death will have his day.” This line shows us how death will come for anyone whether you are king or not and the worst punishment is death for those who commit a terrible crime. In ACT 3 SC. 1, we see this line in action even though it comes later in the play, Bolingbroke has Bushy and Green beheaded. He is punishing them and since the worst during this time is beheading, they get beheaded. King Richard learns this later on when he is killed by Exton and I feel like this is a line that we should all remember. We will die no matter who we are or what we do.