Richard II

Richard, son of Edward the Black Prince, ascended the throne of England at the age of ten. An elegant, luxurious, sensitive monarch, “too favorable” to his enemies and oblivious to his people’s suffering, Richard is ultimately stripped of his wealth, power, and kingdom—and with them his sense of self. Innovative director Robert Woodruff returns to stage this most lyrical and psychologically complex of Shakespeare’s history plays.

SYNOPSIS

King Edward III of England had seven sons, among them the Duke of Gloucester, John of Gaunt, the Duke of York, and Edward the Black Prince. When Edward III died in 1377, his ten-year old grandson Richard, son of the Black Prince, succeeded him to the throne as King Richard II.

While Richard was a child, John of Gaunt and the Dukes of Gloucester and York effectively ruled the kingdom, but Richard soon asserted his independence from his uncles and chose his own advisors, including John Bushy, William Bagot, and Henry Green, to help him govern.

In 1397, shortly before Shakespeare’s play begins, the Duke of Gloucester is murdered, probably at Richard’s command. Gaunt’s son, Henry Bolingbroke, quarrels with Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, over the cause of Gloucester’s death, and Richard banishes both men from England. The shock of his son’s exile weakens the elderly Gaunt, who soon dies. Richard seizes Gaunt’s property and belongings and sets out for Ireland where he hopes to raise further revenue to fund his extravagant lifestyle. But he reckons without Henry Bolingbroke, who, hearing of his father’s death, secretly returns from France to claim his birthright from Richard.