SOURCE: Gajowski, Evelyn. Review of Shakespeare in Performance: King Richard II. Shakespeare Quarterly 49, no. 3 (autumn 1998): 328-30.

In the following review, Gajowski appraises Margaret Shewring's Shakespeare in Performance: King Richard II, praising the work's broad scope, including nineteen theatrical productions over four centuries, but faulting its limited attention to the theoretical aspects of contemporary performance.

“I am Richard II, know ye not that?” Elizabeth I famously remarked to William Lambarde regarding Shakespeare's history play. Margaret Shewring appropriately devotes the introductory chapters of her book for the Shakespeare in Performance series to the “dangerous matter” of Richard II: deposition and regicide. The politically subversive nature of the play's challenge to political stability was exploited by the supporters of the earl of Essex, who commissioned a special performance on the eve of their abortive coup against Elizabeth in 1601. When Nahum Tate adapted Shakespeare's play as The Sicilian Usurper eight decades later...