Gather Richard And Anne Presented By Maxwell Anderson Shown As Textbook

and Anne opens on the first night of a New York production of Shakespeares Richard III.
Just before the curtain rises the the actor playing the title role the Player King is disturbed by the presence of a jester who is visible only to him.
When the curtain rises, the Player King begins to intone the famous soliloquy: “Now is the winter of our discontent.
. . ,” but he is unable to finish because the jester begins to appear in the background, The jester is now visible to all and when the Player King and the stage manager demand he leave, he fades away.


The curtains cannot be lowered and other problems plague the company, The jester, Dag, was the jester of King Richard III, and he explains that he has lain for centuries in his grave which he shares with Richard and has grown tired of the lies told about his beloved master.
He wants to tell the truth about Richard, The producer replies that even if Dag could prevent this one performance, the play will continue to be read and performed all over the world.
Seemingly accepting defeat, Dag fades, but when the performance continues he reappears with Richard IIIdescribed as a handsome man with a somewhat stern and sad face.
Their appearance again disrupts the performance, Richard tells Dag that they seem to be in the way and should leave, but when Dag replies that the actors are portraying him and Anne, Richard politely asks them to continue.
At the conclusion of the scene in which Richard woos Anne over Henry VIs corpse, Richard applauds, praising the scene as “very deft and amusing.
” Dag is astounded:

“This is the sulphuric leech thats eaten
Its way down through the rubble there at
Leicester
And bitten into your good years, yours and my
ladys,
Till my earth felt the sting, and came to hear it”

Richard continues to praise the play, and disbelieves Dag when he asserts it is about him:

“Well, the names Richard.
There have been
many Richards,
One like this perhaps, Not I. ”

When Dag finally convinces Richard that the play is about him:

“This is the only versionand in all histories
This is the way youre known.
”

Richard believes that he can do nothing about the lies that Tudor has told about him, and agrees to leave the stage.
Dag, however gets into an argument with the producer who calls the police to remove the two whom he believes belong to some whacko group that goes around trying to clear Richards name.
While waiting for police reinforcements, Dag and Richard are allowed to tell the audience Richards story, Dag instructs Richard that he can call anyone from his past but may not speak any words not spoken or change the past Richard cries,

“Who wants his life again if its to be
Unchanged Who wants it the way it was

Richard agrees to play Dags game if only to see and talk to Anne again.
The one thing Richard wants to tell her is that he never loved anyone but her, Richard agrees to go on, even though he cannot change things, Henry Tudor initially appears as a rat scurrying and clicking around the stage, A bit harsh perhaps, but turn

about is fair play, If Shakespeare can portray Richard as a deformed evil monster, why not Tudor as a rat Tudor takes human form as a music master in the court of Edward IV and with John Morton eggs on Clarence to kidnap Anne to prevent her marrying Richard.
But Richard rescues and marries her,

In the next scene Bishop Stillington is called to defend himself for waiting until after Edward IVs death to claim that the kings marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous.
The bishop explains that he would have lost his head otherwise, Richard says that neither he nor Anne wanted the crown, but Stillington reminds him that parliament had ruled against Edwards sons and that he is sure Richard will rule well.


Richard then asks Dag to bring on his sons last Christmas at Middleham, Richard remembers it is Annes last Christmas, too, Despite their sorrow following their sons death, Richard cannot understand why she believed he loved another woman.
Dag explains that Tudor and Morton those two troublemakers again sent a woman to Anne who convinced her that Richard saw her illness as a failure and death as abandonment.
Anne persuades Richard to go to battle, promising him “your wife will be all new when you return.
” When he returned , she was gone:

“She died believing
I could love quickly elsewhere, take another
wife
All new.
Must she lie there believing this
As long as earth is earth”

When Dag replies he thinks she must, Richard says wont go back quietly to his grave.


The next scene takes place after Richards death as Tudor tells his nobles he, unlike Richard, will rule with justice, truth, and gentleness.
He asks Elizabeth of York to marry him, but her mother demands to know where her sons are, insisting that they were alive after Richards death.
Alone with Polydore Vergil and Morton, Tudor confesses he had to destroy the boys, Morton convinces him to come up with a more elaborate story about their murder in order to blacken Richards name.
As all three agree to set about destroying Richards reputation, Tudor sees Richard in the shadows and blurts out that he has been tricked into the admitting his guilt.
Richard also accuses him of planning to seize the throne from the beginning, Tudor declares that Richard cant change the histories that have stood for hundreds of years, while Richard argues that truth is stronger than lies.
At this point, the stage manager interrupts Richard, telling him he listened to the audience after the first act.
Their reaction was that his true account was interesting, but that they liked the old version better with the humpbacked usurper.
Dag says he loved King Richard and he loved his mistress Anne but that he is beaten.
Richard responds that they are beaten together,

The actors resume the performance of Shakespeares play with the Richards wooing of Elizabeth, The Player King cannot remember his lines as Anne appears, calling Richards name, As she fades, Richard proclaims over and over again that he loved only her, and she eventually hears and understands that as long as death lasts she will have him.
When this play within a play ends, the producer announces to the audience that they will perform Shakespeares Richard III the following evening.


A sentimental take on Richard and Annes story, but the play is touchingas well as having some traces of humor.
While Shakespeares version of history will continue to be presented and accepted as truth by many, Maxwell Anderson is not without hope that the truth about Richard will be be heard and believed by some.
Maxwell Anderson was a dominant force in the American theater for more than two decades, and when he died on February,, he left behind twenty unfinished or unpublished plays.
One of the unpublished works was Richard and Anne, a twoact verse play about Richard III and Anne Neville, his wife.
Published for the first time here, Richard and Anne is actually two plays within a play, as the characters from Shakespeares Richard III are affected by contemporary characters e.
g. , the stage manager, the director and the producer, and all the characterscontemporary and Shakespeareanare influenced to some extent by the historical characters of Richard and Anne.
Throughout, the accepted "truth" in Shakespeares play is challenged by the historical truth of Richard and Annes real story.
The ending of Richard and Anne, as in so many of Andersons plays, is pessimistic, but not hopeless.
Richard III will be performed again, most will accept the Bards version of truth, but there will always be a few who will challenge it.
In time they might even prevail, and for Maxwell Anderson, the lover of lost causes, were he with us today, this might be enough.
Very emotional and enjoyable book

I haven't read many books like this play, but I can truly say that I enjoyed this one, i have never seen any of Shakespeare's plays but this book gave me the perfect context to create an imagen in my mind and I could easily portrait this situation.


A fool helped by magic goes to New York where is going to be open a new season of Richard III by Shakespeare, Dag the fool is very incensed when he sees the lies people believe of his master so he brings Richard to the stage, in the beginning all is confusion,for the actors and crew is even more confusing, are they ghost Or crazy people faking it Anyway the play can't continue until Richard and Dag start telling parts of the true story, but they will also witness and remember many other things from their past, it's interesting how Richard truly doesn't care if the audience believe him or not, he doesn't care about anyone so for him what Shakespeare wrote doesn't matter, not matter how many times Dag tells him how bad the lies are and bla bla bla, all what Richard cares is that Anne died believing he could love someone else, trough the scenes that they remember we will get to know how Richard married Anne, how their son was and how his death hit them, and some other interesting episodes having Morton and Henry Tudor as a male version of mean girls, unfortunately Richard soon realized that he can't say anything new to Anne or she will fade and be gone, why seems like Dag is doing it, not in purpose but he can't avoid loving Anne.

Sad thing is that people doesn't care the true, they prefer the entertaining version of Shakespeare and I think that is a huge true, made me remember how people believe crazy and stupid things from fiction instead of the true facts I don't know why but "the white queen "tv series and books came to my mind, people in love with Richard III and EOY couple just because the characters look nice together and assuming it as the only true so stupid , anyway I like this book

Innacurate to death but it's a nice book, very sweet and touching.
Maxwell Anderson was an American playwright, poet, and journalist, He won a Pulitzer Prize in Drama in, for Both Your Houses, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for both Winterset and High Tor.
Several of his plays were adapted into successful movies, including Anne of the Thousand Days and Key Largo.
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