Richard III (Vol. 73) | Penny Downie (essay date 1993)
Penny Downie (essay date 1993)
SOURCE: Downie, Penny. “Queen Margaret in Henry VI and Richard III.” In Players of Shakespeare 3: Further Essays in Shakespearian Performance by Players with the Royal Shakespeare Company, edited by Russell Jackson and Robert Smallwood, pp. 114-39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
[In the following excerpt, actress Downie describes her interpretation of Queen Margaret for Adrian Noble's production of Richard III in 1988.]
Queen Margaret was the biggest Shakespearian role I had ever played—the biggest in emotional range and intensity, in spiritual dimension, in the length of the journey from youth to age taken by the character. I suspect it may well be one of the biggest parts in English drama. It became for me very much a single character over three plays, even though the three Henry VI plays, which were reduced to two, were written rather earlier than Richard...
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