Looking for Richard

NARRATOR:

Our revels now are ended.

These our actors, as I foretold you...

... were all spirits

and are melted into air...

... into thin air.

And, like the baseless fabric

of this vision...

... the cloud-capp'd towers...

... the gorgeous palaces...

... the solemn temples...

... the great globe itself...

... ye all which it inherit...

... shall dissolve...

... and, like this insubstantial pageant

faded...

... leave not a wisp behind.

We are such stuff

as dreams are made on...

... and our little life

is rounded with a sleep.

Who's gonna say, "Action"?

Should I say it, or should you?

- You wanna say it?

HADGE:
You can say it.

- I don't want to. Say it.

SPACEY:
You say it.

KIMBALL:
And action!

- How do I look?

I can't see anything.

Are they out there?

This is my entrance.

F***.

[GROWLS]

MAN 1:

I'm actually reading Richard III...

...and I can't get on with it.

I've been reading it for six months.

You want to do it

with your American accent?

We're getting $40 a day

and all the doughnuts we can eat.

Shakespeare? What the f***

do you know about Shakespeare?

Arise, fair sun...

...and kill the envious moon.

Like eager droppings into milk,

it doth posset and curd.

Some are born great,

some achieve greatness...

...and some have greatness

thrust upon them.

MAN 2:

Intelligence is hooked with language.

When we speak with no feeling,

we get nothing out of our society.

We should speak like Shakespeare.

We should introduce Shakespeare

into the academics.

You know why? Because then

the kids would have feelings.

PACINO:
That's right.

- We have no feelings.

That's why it's easy for us

to shoot each other.

We don't feel for each other,

but if we were taught to feel...

...we wouldn't be so violent.

PACINO:
Shakespeare helps us?

He did more than help us.

He instructed us.

PACINO:

Hi. You gonna see the play tonight?

You're gonna see it, huh?

Hello.

MAN 3:
How much it cost?

PACINO:
It's for free.

- Okay, I'm going.

- Okay.

MAN 4:
Thanks a lot.

- Your first Shakespeare play?

- Yeah.

- It'll be interesting. Give it a try.

- I saw Hamlet recently.

- How did you feel about it?

- Did you see it live? It what?

- It sucked.

- It what?

- It sucked. I saw it live.

- It sucked?

- Yeah.

PACINO:
Anything in Shakespeare that

made you think it's not close to you...

...or connected to you in any way?

- Yeah, it's boring.

A bank in England uses

Shakespeare as...

Cover my account number.

See, it's a hologram.

They use it as ID to prove

it's a real card.

PACINO:

What do you think of Shakespeare?

He's a great export.

Who's moving in on Shakespeare?

The Japanese.

Because they're kicking

the Americans' ass.

And they're all interested

in Shakespeare.

You know Shakespeare?

William Shakespeare?

We're peddling him on the streets.

I remember our English teacher

sent us to see...

... a local college production

of King Lear.

I went with my girlfriend...

...and after about 10 minutes

of these people:

[BABBLING]

They were doing this kind

of Shakespearean acting.

I just tuned right out. We made out

in the back row and left at intermission.

I was brought up in a school...

...where Shakespeare was taught

very kind of...

...straightforwardly and dully,

to be honest.

We read it aloud and it made no sense,

because there was no connection made.

My own experience...

...was in the fields in Michigan,

where I was raised on a farm...

...and an uncle, who was a Northern

guy, black Northern guy...

...came out of the field one day

and started narrating...

...Antony's speech, the funeral oration.

- From Shakespeare's Julius Caesar?

- Yeah. We'd heard stuff from the Bible...

...but my first time as a kid,

I was hearing...

...great words having great meaning.

KIMBALL:

What brings us to Montreal?

To Paris? To London?

What takes us into dungeons,

to parapets...

- To Japan next.

- To Japan, maybe, is a quest.

PACINO:

It has always been a dream of mine...

... to communicate how I feel

about Shakespeare to other people.

So I asked my friend Frederic Kimball,

who is an actor and a writer...

... and also our colleagues

Michael Hadge...

... and James Bulleit, to join me.

And by taking this one play,

Richard III...

... analyzing it, approaching it

from different angles...

... putting on costumes,

playing out scenes...

... we could communicate

both our passion for it...

... our understanding

that we've come to...

... and in doing that...

... communicate a Shakespeare

that is about how we feel...

... and how we think today. That's

the effort we're gonna give it here.

KIMBALL:

We've done Richard three times. Twice.

You did it at the Studio, we've done it

in Boston and on Broadway.

At least, the head start is that

I've done it. You've done it.

- But the problem, Frederic...

KIMBALL:
The audience hasn't done it.

- They haven't done it.

- It's a difficult play.

PACINO:
If someone were to ask you

about Richard III...

...what would you remember about it?

To be honest, I really don't remember

that much, if anything at all.

PACINO:
Did you know that Richard llI

had a deformed arm and a deformed back?

- No, I didn't.

PACINO:
You didn't know that?

The play, Richard III,

about the guy with the humpback?

- No.

- You got me there.

Mm-mm.

PACINO:
He was a humpback? "A

horse. A horse. My kingdom for a horse"?

- That comes from Richard III.

MAN 5:
It does, yes.

I mean, nobody knows

who Richard llI is.

- Nobody.

HADGE:
It's a tough play to get.

The relationships between

those characters.

- Who can keep it straight?

- Well, I think the question is...

...what is the understanding?

I mean, the understanding is...

It's a simply... Can you

follow the story line and the plot?

We've provided this kind of

docudrama-type thing...

...to inform some of the scenes

so you know where you are.

For instance, there's an early scene

with the queen...

... and her brother and her two sons...

... which is outside in an anteroom...

...waiting for the king to call them in

because he is inside, sick.

The queen is worried. She's afraid

the king will die, who is her husband.

And when he dies, the only...

The only people left to inherit the throne

are her two young sons...

...by the king himself.

She has two sons by a previous

marriage, which are in the scene.

And she's afraid that the character I

play, Richard llI of Gloucester...

...is going to take hold

of the situation...

...and somehow manipulate them

into thinking...

...that they're, you know...

That the kids are...

I'm confused just saying it.

I can imagine how you must feel...

...hearing me talk. It's confusing.

I don't know why we even bother

doing this at all.

But we'll give it a little try.

Let's see what we can come up with.

First of all, let's get a smaller...

Let's work out of a smaller book

than this. This is hard to carry.

- Excuse me, but look at this. "Hello?"

- I think...

"Yes. It's my entrance? Oh, I see. "

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