Shakespeare's second longest play "The Tragedy of King Richard the Third" is simultaneously a dramatic story of ambition and also a semi-historically accurate account of events that took place in British monarchy. In the 2007 production of the play titled "Richard III: An Arab Tragedy", directed by Sulayman Al-Bassam, the director takes the political and historical contexts of the events in the play out of their home in the fifteenth century post civil-war England and drops them instead into the modern day middle-east. In setting the events of the play in this new backdrop, Al-Bassam diminishes the historical context of the play and the audience's understanding of many of the insinuations thus made by the events occuring in the play.
The historical context of the characters and events that occur in "The Tragedy of King Richard the Third" are extremely important to the audience's ability to understand the nuances of the dialogue and everything that is actually happening in the play. The play itself revolves around narrating the chaotic aftermath of a series of civil wars occurring in England in the late fourteen-hundreds. These civil wars, titled the Wars of the Roses for the heraldic symbols of the two main warring houses, are the focal point and main root of many of the conflicts in the play. For example, the two warring houses, the Lancasters and the Yorks, and the wars fought between them historically existed in England and shaped a great deal of English history. It is these two houses and the conflicts between them that spur the plot of the play as the Yorkish King Edward finally takes the throne and his brother Richard decides that he "... is determined to play the villain," ("The Tragedy of King Richard the Third" 1.1.30). Richard moves forward with his plan to usurp the throne and kill all who stands in his way, "To set my brother Clarence and the King/ In deadly hate the one against the other," (1.1.34-35). These manipulations and the tactics that Richard uses to climb his way onto the throne are all dependant on an understanding of what the history of the Lancaster and York houses were, and how the English people understood their own history regarding the Wars of the Roses and the monarchal divides that occurred because of them.
In analyzing the manipulative plans of Richard III, the audience must also understand not only the history of England's monarchy, but also the nuances of why and how Shakespeare portrayed King Richard III in such an evil light. In the first scene he states that he is going to act as the villain of this story (1.1.30), while later he confronts the new queen about her hatred of him, exclaiming that he "I was a packhorse in his [King Edward IV] great affairs/… To royalize his blood I spent my own," (1.3.122-125). Even while Richard is conniving horrendous deeds of what he knows to be evil, he makes himself out to be a victim and others to be of dubious character. Indeed, Richard is just as bad of a brother as Claudius in the play "Hamlet", just as proud of his evil nature as Aaron in "Titus Andronicus", and less ashamed of murdering innocents than Macbeth in "Macbeth". Richard III is also described as hunchback, being "Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time/ Into this breathing world scarce half made up," (1.1.20-21). The character of Richard in this play is almost comical in how dramatic and villainous he is. To understand why Shakespeare portrayed him as such, audience members must take note of the fact that Shakespear's Queen Elizabeth II was a descendant of King Henry VII, who took the throne from King Richard III. The demonizing character of King Richard in "The Tragedy of King Richard the Third" is today widely accepted as a pantomime used by Shakespeare as merely a way to honor his Queen and to deliver an entertaining story (Smith), rather than being an accurate representation of what actually took place historically. In making King Richard III out to be a horrible and treacherous usurper of the throne, Shakespeare allows the image of King Henry VII (who technically was also a treacherous usurper of the throne) to become a hero saving England from a tyrannical reign from an unworthy ruler. Therefore, by removing this historical background of the real King Richard and the conflicts surrounding him from the play, Director Al-Bassam undermines the cultural relevance of the play and diminishes the audience's understanding of the events in their relation to historical happenings.
The rich historical background of the English monarchies play important roles in how the audience understands and interprets the play "The Tragedy of King Richard III". Without the context of the Wars of the Roses, the conflicts between the usurpation of the throne between King Edward IV and King Richard III, and then between King Richard III and King Henry VII, the audience members cannot fully grasp the nuances and relevance of the plot and characters of the play. In taking this play and setting it in the modern-day middle-east rather than in its original fifteenth-century England, Director Sulayman Al-Bassam removes a great deal of the background of the events taking place on stage and eliminates the majority of the context needed to fully understand and appreciate the play as a whole.
