Looking for Richard Page #2

It's good sometimes that you open it,

and it is Richard, it's not Hamlet.

Sometimes in Shakespeare,

there's a tendency...

...to confuse the plays.

The first act is about a sick king,

and everybody maneuvering...

PACINO:
Sure.

... around. I wish that this play...

...could begin...

...on the body...

On the sleeping king...

...Edward IV, your brother, in bed.

PACINO:
Yeah.

And it pans up and you are standing

over him, looking at him.

Yeah.

- Yes, but he's alive, the king is alive.

- Yes.

I would prefer having him

off in the distance. I'd like...

- Good. You can watch him.

PACINO:
I'd like to walk...

- Frederic? Can you get the other end?

KIMBALL:
Yeah.

I'd like... Hi, how are you?

Frederic and I decided to go

to The Cloisters...

... a museum that has

a medieval setting...

... which is good for us because the play

takes place in this period.

We thought we'd rehearse

in this atmosphere.

We're shooting him.

We're shooting him.

I'll be with you in a minute,

if you can just wait for me out there.

- So you're here.

- Okay. Okay.

- And here we are.

- Okay.

Now, you're Richard's brother,

the sick king, and I'm Richard. Okay.

Yes. I move this way,

and you follow me.

- Now...

- How exciting to start with "now. "

You'd wake your audience up,

wouldn't you? "Now!"

Now...

...is the winter of our discontent...

...made...

...glorious summer...

...by this sun of York.

KIMBALL:

It's a pun.

The sun of York is the sun in the sky...

...over the English countryside of York.

York is also your family name,

and you are one of three sons of York.

Let me say it again, then.

Now...

...is the winter of our discontent...

...made glorious summer.

PACINO:
I said the opening speech

from Richard to a group of students...

"Our discontent made glorious summer. "

Anybody know what that means?

...who were interested, because I meant

something, didn't know what I meant.

"Now is the winter of our discontent. "

What am I saying?

He is referring to their part...

To the Wars of the Roses.

Before the play Richard llI starts...

...we gotta know a little bit

about what happened before.

What happened is, we've just been

through a civil war...

...called the War of the Roses...

[SWORDS CLANGING]

...in which the Lancasters

and the Yorks clashed.

[HORSE NEIGHS]

Two rival families,

and the Yorks won.

They beat the Lancasters, and they're

now in power. Richard is a York.

PACINO:

My brother Edward is the king now.

And my brother Clarence...

...is not the king,

and me, I'm not the king.

I wanna be the king. It's that simple.

Key word, clearly, is...

Right from the start, is "discontent. "

So Richard, in the very opening scene

of the play, tells us...

... just how badly he feels

about the peacetime world...

... he finds himself in

and what he intends to do about it.

Now is the winter of our discontent

made glorious summer...

...by this sun of York.

And all the clouds

that lour'd on our house...

...in the deep bosom

of the ocean buried.

Part of the trouble is

that the Wars of the Roses...

...the wars for the crown,

are now over...

...because the crown has been won

by the Yorks...

...which means

that they can stop fighting.

Now are our brows...

...bound with victorious wreaths.

Our bruised arms

hung up for monuments.

Our stern alarum changed

to merry meetings.

What do they do

when the fighting stops?

Grim-visaged war...

...hath smooth'd his wrinkled front.

And now, instead of mounting

barbed steeds...

...to fright the souls

of fearful adversaries, he capers...

...nimbly in a lady's chamber...

...to the lascivious pleasings of a lute.

FEMALE SCHOLAR:

And you see lovemaking...

...and relations with the other gender...

...as what you translate

your male aggressions into.

But Richard llI has a little problem here.

But I...

...that am not shaped

for sportive tricks...

...nor made to court...

...an amorous looking-glass.

I, that am curtail'd

of this fair proportion...

...cheated of feature

by dissembling nature, deformed.

- Deformed.

- He was a hunchback.

PACINO:

Deformed. Deformed.

Unfinish'd...

...sent before my time

into this breathing world...

...scarce half made up...

...and that so lamely

and unfashionable...

...that dogs bark at me

as I halt by them.

Why, I, in this weak piping

time of peace...

...have no delight

to pass away the time...

...unless to see my shadow in the sun...

...and descant upon

mine own deformity.

Shakespeare has exaggerated

his deformity...

...in order to body forth dramatically...

...visually, metaphorically...

...the corruption of his mind.

Therefore...

...since I cannot prove a lover...

...to entertain these fair

well-spoken days...

...I am determined to prove a villain...

...and to hate the idle pleasures

of these days.

Richard's always saying:

"Here's the situation and what I'll do.

Watch this. " Then he does it.

Then they leave, he says:

"Wasn't that good, or what?

Did you see? This is fun. "

Plots have I laid...

...inductions dangerous...

...to set my brother Clarence

and the king...

...in deadly hate

the one against the other.

And if King Edward be as true...

...and just as I am subtle,

false and treacherous...

...this day should Clarence

be mew'd up...

...about a prophecy...

...that says that G of Edward's heirs

the murderer shall be.

It's, "This day should Clarence be

mew'd up...

...about a prophecy which says that G

of Edward's heirs. "

[PHONE RINGS]

KIMBALL:
Right.

- By "G," what does that mean?

- Yes?

- Clarence...

George, Duke of Clarence.

- His first name is really George.

PACINO:
Whose first name?

Clarence's.

That's why he's called "G."

PACINO:
Yeah.

KIMBALL:
I suggest you change it to "C."

"This day should Clarence be mew'd up

about a prophecy which says that...

...C of Edward's heirs

the murderer shall be. "

C of Edward's heirs

the murderer shall be.

Dive, thoughts, down to my soul.

Here Clarence comes.

Cut.

What we gotta do, what we should do,

is get actors in here...

...not audition them,

just get them in...

... and let them just sit around,

just see and read.

We'll have different people read

different roles. Hopefully somehow...

...the role and the actor will merge.

The actor will find the role.

An actor will read one part...

... another actor reads another.

Hopefully, the casting will get done.

PACINO:

Who's got Dorset?

Who's got Dorset?

How about Lord Grey?

Richard will read Dorset.

- He's gonna do Buckingham.

- I thought Jim would do it.

PACINO:
He's doing Catesby.

- What do I read?

KIMBALL:

Dorset and Grey are the same people.

PACINO:
Dorset and Grey are the same...?

KIMBALL:
Yes.

You two guys better sit on each other.

We used two actors in the same part.

It'll take us four weeks of rehearsal

to figure out what parts we're playing.

In more modern plays, we feel that

we understand it. It's there for us.

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