SOURCE: Marienstras, Richard. “Of a Monstrous Body.” In French Essays on Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, edited by Jean-Marie Maguin and Michèle Willems, pp. 153-74. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1995.

In the following essay, originally published in 1990, Marienstras studies the cultural tradition and symbolic significance of Richard's deformed body in Richard III.

In Bill Alexander's 1984 production of Richard III with the Royal Shakespeare Company,¹ the “monstrous” aspects of the protagonist were particularly emphasized. Antony Sher, who acted Richard, used crutches and, insectlike, hopped on four legs. Sometimes, with his huge hanging sleeves reaching down to the floor, he would assume the hallucinating appearance of a six-legged giant spider. The guiding idea of the production was to magnify the “animality” of Richard, a choice that Antony Sher settled upon after rejecting several other conceptions:

As he found himself growing intuitively into the role, Sher's trial impressions of the...