The King in the Car Park

This Channel5 documentary (England) -- and the "performance" of Philippa Langley (lead Richardian in the restoration of King Richard III's historical and material images) in particular, is an incredible study in theatrical reanimation.  Restored behavior -- as defined by R. Schechner -- but with particular effort to fight theatre with theatre.  Shakespeare's play about the last Plantagenet King is, of course, not the only piece of Tutor propaganda supporting the playwright's contemporary rulers -- but it is the most famous and the most influential.  No other vehicle been more effective in disseminating a narrative of cruelty and deformity than Shakespeare's history play.  On the other hand, the discovery of Richard's bones in a parking lot is a drama for 21st-century audiences that matches the play's pathos, but in order to flatter rather than disfigure.  (I want to make it clear that as far as I'm concerned, I've never read Shakespeare's play as a wholly unsympathetic attack on the king--I think the Richardian's are a bit too literal minded.  For one, the character's cunning is not an entirely unlikable feature.)

When I say Ms. Langley is 'performing,' I mean so in a number of senses, not the least of which is her performance of research, discovery, and restoration.  There is also more than a small amount of theatricality to her persona, as one can see clearly in the documentary on the recovery of Richard's bones from the parking lot (see below).  Most interestingly, the protagonist of the drama is not a living human being, it is an object: the bones of the fifteenth-century English king.  Reminiscent of Hamlet at Yorick's grave, the work of the supporting players in the documentary is to bring Richard's bones back to life.

I am not particularly interested in confirming the validity of the King Richard III Society's claims, or duplicating their affections for the king; nor do I condemn Ms. Langley for her (unacknowledged) theatrical investigation of an historical subject.  What I am interested in is how the recovery of Richard intersects at the history of his body.  Further, I find it astonishing (but not surprising) that the work of reconstruction done in the documentary and at the University of Leicester is wrapped in multiple, supple layers of drama: a plot devised as a detective story, 3-D mask-making, deep emotionality (occasionally cut with a dose of irony), revelation, peripeteia, and finally resolution in the public display of Richard's bust.  Near the end of the documentary, Ms. Langley states (with Richard's clay head peering at us over her shoulder): "...after everything that's happened, after everything we've been through, to see the real Richard III [she points to the painted, clay resemblance of Richard III]...um...I'm just full of joy."