The King is Dead, Long Live the King: Shakespeare's "Richard II" and its early stage history

Abstract

William Shakespeare's plays have been staged in various sociopolitical contexts over the past four hundred years. Richard II was first performed c. 1595, but was not one of the most popular dramatic texts of the Bard. During the nineteenth century in London, however, when English artistic production in general developed a great interest in representations of the past, especially the Middle Ages, Shakespeare’s King Richard returned to the stage in spectacular productions, such as the early-century staging starring Edmund Kean at the Royal Drury Lane Theater in 1815, and Charles Kean's “archaeological” production in 1857 at the Princess Theater. This article aims at presenting and discussing such stagings of Richard II in nineteenth-century London from the perspective of "medievalism."