Richard II: Mrs Farren as the Queen, Bell British Library, 1786.

Sir Robert Cecil saw the earliest known performance Dec. 9, 1595 at Sir Edward Hoby's house in Canon Row. At the Globe Theatre on Feb. 7, 1601, a performance was paid for by supporters of the Earl of Essex's planned revolt, because of the precedent for deposition of a monarch it afforded. Essex was executed and Shakespeare's company queried but excused. On Sept. 30, 1607 the crew of Capt. William Keeling acted Richard II on the British East India Company ship The Red Dragon, off Sierra Leone. The play was at the Globe on June 11 and 12, 1631. At the Restoration a 1680 adaptation at Drury Lane by Nahum Tate was suppressed for its political implications. Tate's version, called The Sicilian Usurper, attempted to blunt his criticism of the Stuart court by stressing Richard's noble qualities but Tate's preface notes his play was "silenc'd on the third day." Lewis Theobald staged another, more successful version in 1719 at Lincoln's Inn Fields. Shakespeare's original version was revived at Covent Garden in 1738.

Elizabeth Farren (1759-1829) was noted for her vivacity and cultivated voice; slim and tall (and blue-eyed) she wore clothes well, which made her apt for roles as a fine lady, but she also was cast as Juliet, Portia, Olivia, and Hermione. [There is some debate about which Farren this is: Burnim claims this is Mary Farren in Richard III, at Covent Garden in 1788, despite the printed identification!] UCB SP Collection. (Data courtesy of Frost's Meditations, at WWW.martinfrost)