Royal Shakespeare Company, Alan Howard, Directed Terry Hands, 1980–81

Abstract

The RSC’s next Richard II after Barton’s was directed by Terry Hands, who had a reputation for an operatic approach. He stated that the play ‘is less a play, more a mass. A requiem mass. You mourn its going. Both men talk of pilgrimages and God as a court of appeal; thus testing the divinity of Kingship (as Richard does in his murder scene) is challenging God’ (Robert Warden, ‘All the King’s Men’, Event, 13 Nov. 1981). Hands added: ‘Kings have been out of fashion for a long time. People are embarrassed by them. But our leaders still have almost divine power’ (Lucy Hughes- Hallett, ‘The Geometry of Necessity’, RSC Yearbook 1980–81, p. 22).