Watch our British Sign Language synopsis of Richard III. 

After years of civil unrest between the royal houses of York and Lancaster, Edward IV reigns as King. His brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots to clear his own path to the throne, starting with the arrest and murder of his brother, Clarence. He then woos and marries Lady Anne, the widow of one of his earlier victims. When King Edward IV dies, Richard has his two young sons taken to the Tower, supposedly for safekeeping. Edward IV’s widow, Elizabeth Woodville, mistrusts Richard and is proved right when he has her brother, Rivers, and her son, Grey, executed. 

Richard forms an alliance with the Duke of Buckingham and together they mastermind Richard’s accession to the throne. Richard is crowned king, but when Buckingham hesitates at Richard’s order to murder the princes in the Tower, their alliance is broken. Buckingham flees and joins Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who arrives with an army to claim the throne. At Bosworth Field, Richard is tormented by ghosts of his victims and is later defeated in battle. Richmond claims the crown and announces that he will end the Wars of the Roses by marrying Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV, and establishing the Tudor dynasty. 

• Organise your students into seven groups and give each group ONE line. (With smaller numbers, you can give groups more than one line.) 

• Ask each group to read through the line, and spend 30 seconds talking about what they notice, what they think it means.  

•  After those thirty seconds guide them to the idea that each line has a sense of opposition or antithesis in it. 

• Then ask each group to create a tableaux (frozen picture) to physically present the first idea in the line. Tell them they only have ONE minute to do so.

• Following this give the group another minute to create a tableaux on the opposite idea in the line. 

• Invite each group to share their short pieces, encouraging other students to really observe what they see and hear. 

• Now give each group THREE minutes to work out a way to transition from the first image to the other, as well as incorporating the line. Some helpful prompts, might be to encourage them to think about how you get from one idea to the other, what feeling might they convey or express. How do they use the transition to help that? Maybe they have different members of the group represent the two ideas. How might they say the line? Chorally? Individually? What might they feel as they say it? 

• Afterwards open up a discussion, asking them: What stood out? What sort of world do they think this is? What do all these oppositions give us? What might the person who said this feel about the world? You might prompt them to think about what it might feel like to be in a time of peace, when war is the only thing you understand.

• Organise your students into ten groups and give each group ONE of the ten scenes. (With smaller numbers, you can give groups more than one scene.)

• Ask each group to read through their scene(s) firstly looking at what events happen, and what feels out of the ordinary e.g., murder, accusations of treason.   

• Then ask each group to decide which part of their section is the MOST IMPORTANT. Explain that they will now have 15 minutes to cast and rehearse their scene for performance, making sure they focus on portraying their chosen story beat clearly.  

• Encourage them to use different ways to present their scene: tableaux, use of gesture, narration. Stress every member of the group must be used. 

• Invite the groups to perform their scene in the numbered order. After all groups have performed, encourage positive feedback: Which key moments stood out and why? What do they think the plays are about? Who do they think this play is about? What elements do we feel are missing? What might we change to make it clearer?

  Notes from the Rehearsal Room: 

  In rehearsals Gregory spoke about how this play is a prayer starting with the word “Now” and ending with “Amen” placing it directly into our present. It is a prayer for now, with no one having to think too hard about the parallels with present day leaders. It allowed us to find language to talk about what is going on in our current world – as if Shakespeare is helping us to understand the world we are in. 

   

  Reflection Point 

  Following on from this activity, ask students to consider all the events in the play that seem shocking, and see if they can think of contemporary examples that mirror them. Can students see any similarities between Richard, and current leaders in the world? How can Shakespeare’s version of history help us to understand about the world we are living in? 

Shakespeare was clearly writing this play at a time when the Tudor dynasty was on the throne, so you have to consider the bias of setting up Richmond, Queen Elizabeth I grandfather, as the next hero king.   

                                                                       Aaron Parsons, Associate Director, Richard III 

• Ask students to find a space in the room by themselves. Ask them to notice how they are standing and explain that they are going to transform the way they are standing to present the idea of a hero through a count of five. 

• Begin to count from one to five, allowing them to physically shift to become a hero. Ask them to notice how they are standing, where they hold the weight in their bodies. Has their breathing changed? How might they look around the room? 

• Now, ask them to take their hero on a walk, explain to them that, although they are walking round the room with other people, ask them to be alone in their journey, not acknowledging anyone else. 

• After three minutes, select five students to step out and observe. Get them to look at what they notice about the way people move, what similarities they see, what differences. 

• Ask everyone to pause and all just look around the room at how people are stood. Then ask them to relax, letting go of their hero physicality.  

• Ask students to split into pairs and get them to label themselves X & Y.

• Hand out the two speeches from Appendix C. Xs will get Text One and Ys will get Text Two.

• Ask students to sit closely, facing each other. Each person will take it in turns to read their speech aloud. Ask them to take their time, trying to take a line at a time, delivering it to their partner.

• Encourage the person listening to notice what they hear. Ask them to consider if they get a sense of the person who is speaking or who they are speaking with.  

When throwing insults at a man who has a lived experience of disability it changes the way you hear those insults. You begin to understand the impact those insults have.

                                                                                         Gregory Doran, Director, Richard III

• Choose one student to go outside the room, explaining that when they come back in something will be happening.

• When that student is outside, decide some principles with the other students. Explain that certain words will mean different actions.

• Standard – Which means everyone is walking around in space. They are ignoring the student when they come back in.

• Spy – This is done during standard, students try to look at the student when they come back in but without being seen to be looking, as a spy.

• Swarm – On this instruction the entire group must try to surround the student who has been selected. It’s important to stress there should be no physical contact.

• Practice each instruction with the students, setting up Standard. Once the students are happily moving around the space invite the student outside back in, ask them to try and join in.

• As they do this, call out each instruction, allowing time between each instruction. After swarm, ask students to stop, and find a partner.

• In pairs, give them one minute to talk about how it felt, and what they noticed. 

• After a minute, invite students to share their reflections to the wider group. What did they notice? How did it make them feel? Ask the individual who was outside what the activity was like for them. Guide them to think about if they felt they understood the rules/expectations. How might this speak to the experience Richard has in the play?

• After a minute, invite students to share their reflections to the wider group. What did they notice? How did it make them feel? Ask the individual who was outside what the activity was like for them. Guide them to think about if they felt they understood the rules/expectations. How might this speak to the experience Richard has in the play? 

• Ask them to return to their pairs, and decide who is going to be X and who is going to be Y.

• Give each student a printed copy of the Appendix D, face down in front of them. Explain that they have 30 seconds from when they are told to turn the sheet over to find the most interesting phrase on the sheet and that they will need to try and remember it.

• Ask students to stand facing their partner and explain it is important they try to maintain eye contact for the next minute. Starting with X’s, encourage them to say their chosen phrase to each other. Explain it is the only thing they can say, but each time they say it, it is a response, therefore the inflection, or the intention may change.

• At the end of the minute, ask them to quickly to discuss what they noticed and then invite them to share with the larger group. How tricky was it? How much impact did the phrase have?

• Now ask them to get back into their pairs, and this time Y’s will start, but instead of saying their chosen phrase they are going to say all the phrases. They still have to maintain eye contact, but this time X’s just have to listen.

• When Y’s have finished, get them quickly to reflect on what they noticed that time, before they swap over.

• It’s now X’s turn to do the same thing to Y’s, they will say all the phrases, whilst maintaining eye contact, and Y’s will just listen. The addition this time is to imagine that all these phrases are about something Y’s cannot change about themselves.

• When X’s finish, get them again to quickly to discuss what they noticed. Was it different, if so how?

• Invite students to reflect back on what they have been discussing in their pairs, steering the discussion to consider how people using this language about you, your entire life, in relation to something you cannot change, could have an impact on you and your view of the world. 

This performance activity will help students to explore Richard’s perspective on the ableist world and will last approximately 20 minutes. 

For this activity you will need enough copies of  Act 1 Scene 1 Edited from the Resources section at the end of the page, so that each student has one.

This is a physical activity broken into three parts to help students explore the manifestation of Richard’s conscience through the ghosts of people he has killed.  

These activities are best done in socks or bare feet. An accompaniment of gentle ambient music might be helpful. These activities should last approximately 30 minutes.  

• Organise students into groups of five, size and number of groups can vary depending on the number of students.

• Explain that each group will be given four words. Each word describes how someone in the play is murdered, under Richard’s instruction.

• The first word is Poisoning. Give the groups one minute to agree on a gesture that portrays poisoning. Encourage them to think about if the poison was drunk. How might it feel? How does that feeling inform the gesture?

• After that minute, give them another two minutes to think about how they can interpret that gesture. Encourage them to practically explore how they make it as big as possible and then as small as possible. Where does the movement start? What is their face doing? How does it look with expressive faces, compared to no expression? Ask them to find a version which is bigger, more abstract; that is their final version.

• Do this same process with the following three words Smothering, Stabbing, Garroting.

• At the end groups will have four abstract gestures they can play with. Ask them to separate from their groups, and to find a space in the room.

• Individually, ask students to move around the room, finding their Ash Walk again.

• Explain to them that when you call out a word they are going to perform their gesture, getting them to find a way of recovering, as if nothing happened, and then continue to move.

• Call out each word in turn, invite students to have the freedom to perform each gesture at will.

• Afterwards, ask students to grab someone closest to them, and ask them to reflect on what they found in what they did and what they noticed about what other people were doing. Did they notice a mood, or a feeling? 

• Ask students to return to their groups of five. Explain they are going to use all of the material they have created to create a highly visual scene of the ghosts visiting Richard as he sleeps.

• Invite the group to cast themselves, one person will be Richard, and the others will be ghosts, each of them taking a specific gesture as the way they died.

• Encourage them to think about each ghost visiting separately, showing clearly how they are different. How might they interact with Richard? How does each ghost cause Richard to react? How might they build the scene’s tension? Does each visit get worse? Do the ghosts stay?

• Offer students a text scrap “Despair and Die” - which each ghost says. Ask them to try echoing, reacting or layering the text.

• As they develop the short scene, encourage students to consider what the story they are trying to tell is. What impact do the ghosts have on Richard’s conscience? How should we feel about Richard by the end of the scene?

• After 10 minutes invite some willing volunteers to share their work. What do other students notice about these interpretations? Ask for positive feedback from the rest of the group. What did they like about the interpretation? What did they think worked? What felt clear? What sense of the characters did they get from seeing the performances?  

• Ask students to each take a copy of the text and find a space in the room.

• Explain that when you say go, they will all walk through the space speaking the text out loud, instructing them to stop when they have said all the words.

• Ask them what they noticed; Words? Sentences? Ideas?

• Ask students to do the same exercise, but observing the full stops, exclamation points or question marks. Each time they encounter any of them, ask them to change direction. Again, when they have reached the end of the text ask them to stop.

• Ask half the students to repeat the exercise, changing direction when they encounter punctuation. Ask the other half of students to watch. When they have finished the exercise ask them to reflect on what they noticed when they changed direction. What does it say about Richard’s thoughts? Steer them to consider how short and quick the thoughts are. What might that say about his emotional state? How does speaking like that affect their breathing? Ask someone who did the exercise if they can talk about how it made them feel.

• Ask students to go back to working by themselves and apply their interpretation to create a performance. How do they explore his sense of conscience? How can they make it clear to an audience what Richard might be going through? Who is he talking with? What is he realising through the text? Give everyone 10 minutes to create a performance of the text.

• After 10 minutes invite some willing volunteers to share their interpretations of the text, and of Richard. What do other students notice about these interpretations? What is the impact of Richard’s conscience?