vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Richard III (play)
Richard III is a historical play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written around 1593 . It depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of King Richard III of England . The play is grouped among the histories in the First Folio and is most often classified as such . Occasionally , however , as in the quarto edition , it is termed a tragedy . Richard III concludes Shakespeare 's first tetralogy ( also containing Henry VI parts 1 -- 3 ) .
Romeo and Juliet
In the later part of the 18th and through the 19th century , criticism centred on debates over the moral message of the play . Actor and playwright David Garrick 's 1748 adaptation excluded Rosaline : Romeo abandoning her for Juliet was seen as fickle and reckless . Critics such as Charles Dibdin argued that Rosaline had been purposely included in the play to show how reckless the hero was and that this was the reason for his tragic end . Others argued that Friar Laurence might be Shakespeare 's spokesman in his warnings against undue haste . With the advent of the 20th century , these moral arguments were disputed by critics such as Richard Green Moulton : he argued that accident , and not some character flaw , led to the lovers ' deaths .
Republic of Ireland
The history of Irish theatre begins with the expansion of the English administration in Dublin during the early 17th century , and since then , Ireland has significantly contributed to English drama . In its early history , theatrical productions in Ireland tended to serve political purposes , but as more theatres opened and the popular audience grew , a more diverse range of entertainments were staged . Many Dublin - based theatres developed links with their London equivalents , and British productions frequently found their way to the Irish stage . However , most Irish playwrights went abroad to establish themselves . In the 18th century , Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan were two of the most successful playwrights on the London stage at that time . At the beginning of the 20th century , theatre companies dedicated to the staging of Irish plays and the development of writers , directors and performers began to emerge , which allowed many Irish playwrights to learn their trade and establish their reputations in Ireland rather than in Britain or the United States . Following in the tradition of acclaimed practitioners , principally Oscar Wilde , Literature Nobel Prize laureates George Bernard Shaw ( 1925 ) and Samuel Beckett ( 1969 ) , playwrights such as Seán O'Casey , Brian Friel , Sebastian Barry , Brendan Behan , Conor McPherson and Billy Roche have gained popular success . Other Irish playwrights of the 20th century include Denis Johnston , Thomas Kilroy , Tom Murphy , Hugh Leonard , Frank McGuinness , and John B. Keane .
Actor
When an eighteen - year Puritan prohibition of drama was lifted after the English Restoration of 1660 , women began to appear on stage in England . Margaret Hughes is oft credited as the first professional actress on the English stage . This prohibition ended during the reign of Charles II in part because he enjoyed watching actresses on stage . The first occurrence of the term actress was in 1608 according to the OED and is ascribed to Middleton . In the 19th century many viewed women in acting negatively , as actresses were often courtesans and associated with promiscuity . Despite these prejudices , the 19th century also saw the first female acting `` stars '' , most notably Sarah Bernhardt .
Shakespeare's reputation
Shakespeare became an important emblem of national pride in the 19th century , which was the heyday of the British Empire and the acme of British power in the world . To Thomas Carlyle in On Heroes , Hero - Worship , and the Heroic in History ( 1841 ) , Shakespeare was one of the great poet - heroes of history , in the sense of being a `` rallying - sign '' for British cultural patriotism all over the world , including even the lost American colonies : `` From Paramatta , from New York , wheresoever ... English men and women are , they will say to one another , ' Yes , this Shakespeare is ours ; we produced him , we speak and think by him ; we are of one blood and kind with him ' '' ( `` The Hero as a Poet '' ) . As the foremost of the great canonical writers , the jewel of English culture , and as Carlyle puts it , `` merely as a real , marketable , tangibly useful possession '' , Shakespeare became in the 19th century a means of creating a common heritage for the motherland and all her colonies . Post-colonial literary critics have had much to say of this use of Shakespeare 's plays in what they regard as a move to subordinate and deracinate the cultures of the colonies themselves . Across the North Sea , Shakespeare remained influential in Germany . In 1807 , August Wilhelm Schlegel translated all of Shakespeare 's plays into German , and such was the popularity of Schlegel 's translation ( which is generally regarded as one of the best translations of Shakespeare into any language ) that German nationalists were soon starting to claim that Shakespeare was actually a German playwright who just written his plays in English . By the middle of the 19th century , Shakespeare had been incorporated into the pantheon of German literature . In 1904 , a statue of Shakespeare was erected in Weimar showing the Bard of Avon staring into the distance , becoming the first statue built to honor Shakespeare on the mainland of Europe .
Hamlet
Ian Charleson performed Hamlet from 9 October to 13 November 1989 , in Richard Eyre 's production at the Olivier Theatre , replacing Daniel Day - Lewis , who had abandoned the production . Seriously ill from AIDS at the time , Charleson died eight weeks after his last performance . Fellow actor and friend , Sir Ian McKellen , said that Charleson played Hamlet so well it was as if he had rehearsed the role all his life ; McKellen called it `` the perfect Hamlet '' . The performance garnered other major accolades as well , some critics echoing McKellen in calling it the definitive Hamlet performance .
Romeo and Juliet
Nevertheless , in October 2014 , Lois Leveen speculated in The Atlantic that the original Shakespeare play did not contain a balcony . The word , balcone , did not exist in the English language until two years after Shakespeare 's death . The balcony was certainly used in Thomas Otway 's 1679 play , The History and Fall of Caius Marius , which had borrowed much of its story from Romeo and Juliet and placed the two lovers in a balcony reciting a speech similar to that between Romeo and Juliet . Leveen suggested that during the 18th century , David Garrick chose to use a balcony in his adaptation and revival of Romeo and Juliet and modern adaptations have continued this tradition .
Hamlet
The story of Shakespeare 's Hamlet was derived from the legend of Amleth , preserved by 13th - century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum , as subsequently retold by the 16th - century scholar François de Belleforest . Shakespeare may also have drawn on an earlier Elizabethan play known today as the Ur - Hamlet , though some scholars believe he himself wrote the Ur - Hamlet , later revising it to create the version of Hamlet we now have . He almost certainly wrote his version of the title role for his fellow actor , Richard Burbage , the leading tragedian of Shakespeare 's time . In the 400 years since its inception , the role has been performed by numerous highly acclaimed actors in each successive century .
Romeo and Juliet
American actors began to rival their British counterparts . Edwin Booth ( brother to John Wilkes Booth ) and Mary McVicker ( soon to be Edwin 's wife ) opened as Romeo and Juliet at the sumptuous Booth 's Theatre ( with its European - style stage machinery , and an air conditioning system unique in New York ) on 3 February 1869 . Some reports said it was one of the most elaborate productions of Romeo and Juliet ever seen in America ; it was certainly the most popular , running for over six weeks and earning over $60,000 ( equal to about $1,080,000 today ) . The programme noted that : `` The tragedy will be produced in strict accordance with historical propriety , in every respect , following closely the text of Shakespeare . ''
Theatre of ancient Greece
Until the Hellenistic period , all tragedies were unique pieces written in honour of Dionysus and played only once , so that today we primarily have the pieces that were still remembered well enough to have been repeated when the repetition of old tragedies became fashionable ( the accidents of survival , as well as the subjective tastes of the Hellenistic librarians later in Greek history , also played a role in what survived from this period ) .
Shakespeare's reputation
A 1981 production of The Merchant of Venice was a hit with Chinese audiences as the play was seen promoting the theme of justice and fairness in life , with the character of Portia being especially popular as she seen as standing for as one critic wrote for `` the humanist spirit of the Renaissance '' with its striving for `` individuality , human rights and freedom '' . The theme of a religious conflict between a Jewish merchant vs. a Christian merchant in The Merchant of Venice is generally ignored in Chinese productions of The Merchant of Venice as most Chinese find do not find the theme of Jewish - Christian conflict relevant. , Unlike in Western productions , the character of Shylock is very much an unnuanced villain in Chinese productions of The Merchant of Venice , being presented as a man capable only of envy , spite , greed and cruelty , a man whose actions are only motivated by his spiritual impoverishment . By contrast , in the West , Shylock is usually presented as a nuanced villain , of a man who has never held power over a Christian before , and lets that power go to his head . Another popular play , especially with dissidents under the Communist government , is Hamlet . Hamlet , with its theme of a man trapped under a tyrannical regime is very popular with Chinese dissidents with one dissident Wu Ningkun writing about his time in internal exile between 1958 - 61 at a collective farm in a remote part of northern Manchuria that he understood all too well the line from the play `` Denmark is a prison ! ''
Musical theatre
From the 18th century , the most popular forms of musical theatre in Britain were ballad operas , like John Gay 's The Beggar 's Opera , that included lyrics written to the tunes of popular songs of the day ( often spoofing opera ) , and later pantomime , which developed from commedia dell'arte , and comic opera with mostly romantic plot lines , like Michael Balfe 's The Bohemian Girl ( 1845 ) . Meanwhile , on the continent , singspiel , comédie en vaudeville , opéra comique , zarzuela and other forms of light musical entertainment were emerging . The Beggar 's Opera was the first recorded long - running play of any kind , running for 62 successive performances in 1728 . It would take almost a century afterwards before any play broke 100 performances , but the record soon reached 150 in the late 1820s . Other musical theatre forms developed in England by the 19th century , such as music hall , melodrama and burletta , which were popularized partly because most London theatres were licensed only as music halls and not allowed to present plays without music .
The Comedy of Errors
For centuries , scholars have found little thematic depth in The Comedy of Errors . Harold Bloom , however , wrote that it `` reveals Shakespeare 's magnificence at the art of comedy '' . The play was not a particular favourite on the eighteenth century stage because it failed to offer the kind of striking roles that actors such as David Garrick could exploit .
Hamlet
In France , Charles Kemble initiated an enthusiasm for Shakespeare ; and leading members of the Romantic movement such as Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas saw his 1827 Paris performance of Hamlet , particularly admiring the madness of Harriet Smithson 's Ophelia . In Germany , Hamlet had become so assimilated by the mid-19th century that Ferdinand Freiligrath declared that `` Germany is Hamlet '' . From the 1850s , the Parsi theatre tradition in India transformed Hamlet into folk performances , with dozens of songs added .
Shakespeare's reputation
Theatres and theatrical scenery became ever more elaborate in the 19th century , and the acting editions used were progressively cut and restructured to emphasise more and more the soliloquies and the stars , at the expense of pace and action . Performances were further slowed by the need for frequent pauses to change the scenery , creating a perceived need for even more cuts to keep performance length within tolerable limits ; it became a generally accepted maxim that Shakespeare 's plays were too long to be performed without substantial cuts . The platform , or apron , stage , on which actors of the 17th century would come forward for audience contact , was gone , and the actors stayed permanently behind the fourth wall or proscenium arch , further separated from the audience by the orchestra , see image right .
Prince Hamlet
Maurice Evans was the first to play the role on American television , in 1953 on the Hallmark Hall of Fame . Christopher Plummer received an Emmy Award nomination for a television version filmed at Elsinore Castle in 1964 . Richard Chamberlain played Hamlet in a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation in 1970 . Derek Jacobi played Hamlet in the 1980 BBC Television Shakespeare production . Kevin Kline played the role in a 1990 PBS television production which he also directed , and which originated at the New York Shakespeare Festival . Campbell Scott played the role in a U.S. 2000 television production set during the American Civil War , in which Polonius , Ophelia , and Laertes were portrayed as an African - American family . David Tennant and the rest of the original cast from the 2008 - 9 Royal Shakespeare Company production reprised their roles for a BBC film version , which aired in the UK in December 2009 .
Studio audience
In its earliest days , most television broadcasts stemmed from the world of New York theater . Performing in front of a crowd was something stage veterans knew how to do well . Starting in the 1940s , these plays were broadcast live . Thus , these plays were now directed towards both the live audience and those watching from home .
The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a 16th - century play by William Shakespeare in which a merchant in Venice must default on a large loan provided by an abused Jewish moneylender . It is believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599 . Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare 's other romantic comedies , the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic scenes , and it is best known for Shylock and the famous `` Hath not a Jew eyes ? '' speech . Also notable is Portia 's speech about `` the quality of mercy '' . Critic Harold Bloom listed it among Shakespeare 's great comedies .
Actor
Formerly , in some societies , only men could become actors . In ancient Greece and ancient Rome and the medieval world , it was considered disgraceful for a woman to go on stage ; this belief persisted until the 17th century in Venice . In the time of William Shakespeare , women 's roles were generally played by men or boys .
Hamlet
Apart from some western troupes ' 19th - century visits , the first professional performance of Hamlet in Japan was Otojirō Kawakami 's 1903 Shimpa ( `` new school theatre '' ) adaptation . Tsubouchi Shōyō translated Hamlet and produced a performance in 1911 that blended Shingeki ( `` new drama '' ) and Kabuki styles . This hybrid - genre reached its peak in Tsuneari Fukuda 's 1955 Hamlet . In 1998 , Yukio Ninagawa produced an acclaimed version of Hamlet in the style of Nō theatre , which he took to London .
Hamlet
John Philip Kemble made his Drury Lane debut as Hamlet in 1783 . His performance was said to be 20 minutes longer than anyone else 's , and his lengthy pauses provoked the suggestion by Richard Brinsley Sheridan that `` music should be played between the words '' . Sarah Siddons was the first actress known to play Hamlet ; many women have since played him as a breeches role , to great acclaim . In 1748 , Alexander Sumarokov wrote a Russian adaptation that focused on Prince Hamlet as the embodiment of an opposition to Claudius 's tyranny -- a treatment that would recur in Eastern European versions into the 20th century . In the years following America 's independence , Thomas Apthorpe Cooper , the young nation 's leading tragedian , performed Hamlet among other plays at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia , and at the Park Theatre in New York . Although chided for `` acknowledging acquaintances in the audience '' and `` inadequate memorisation of his lines '' , he became a national celebrity .
Medieval theatre
A revival of interest in ancient Roman and Greek culture changed the tastes of the learned classes in the performing arts . Greek and Roman plays were performed and new plays were written that were heavily influenced by the classical style . This led to the creation of Commedia dell'arte and influenced Renaissance theatre .
Medieval theatre
Medieval theatre differed from the classical theatre for it emphasized spectacle . In addition , it presented various actions on stage in time and space and presented a combination of the sublime with detailed realism . Approximately 1400 A.D. , the dramas were performed with spectacle ; no longer dependent exclusively on the spoken word , but incorporating music , dance , costume and set design . The spectacle of the later Medieval theatre made it necessary to have detailed stage directions . A sample of documented staging drawings and directions remain from the 15th - century morality play The Castle of Perseverance . The evolution to the dependence on detailed stage direction made possible the great Shakespearean stage .
Richard III (play)
Most film versions of Richard III feature actors who had previously played Richard on stage . The two best - known film versions are those with Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen . McKellen 's film is directly based on an earlier stage production set in a Nazified England of the 1930s , which toured Europe for six years to sell - out crowds prior to being shortly thereafter adapted to film . McKellen wrote the screenplay for his film version , although he did not direct it . Olivier played Richard on stage for quite a few years in the 1940s before making a film of it in 1955 . His film performance , if not the production as a whole , is heavily based on his earlier stage rendition . The Al Pacino film Looking for Richard is a documentary of rehearsals of specific scenes from the play , and a meditation on the play 's significance . Pacino had played the role on stage 15 years earlier . In 2011 , well - known film actor Kevin Spacey starred in an Old Vic production which subsequently toured the United States , directed by well - known stage and film director Sam Mendes . No plans for a film version have been announced . Spacey had played the role of Richard 's henchman , the Duke of Buckingham , in the Pacino film .
France–United Kingdom relations
French classical music has always been popular in Britain . British popular music is in turn popular in France . English literature , in particular the works of Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare , has been immensely popular in France . French artist Eugène Delacroix based many of his paintings on scenes from Shakespeare 's plays . In turn , French writers such as Molière , Voltaire and Victor Hugo have been translated numerous times into English . In general , most of the more popular books in either language are translated into the other .
Hamlet
Henry Fielding 's Tom Jones , published about 1749 , describes a visit to Hamlet by Tom Jones and Mr Partridge , with similarities to the `` play within a play '' . In contrast , Goethe 's Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister 's Apprenticeship , written between 1776 and 1796 , not only has a production of Hamlet at its core but also creates parallels between the ghost and Wilhelm Meister 's dead father . In the early 1850s , in Pierre , Herman Melville focuses on a Hamlet - like character 's long development as a writer . Ten years later , Dickens 's Great Expectations contains many Hamlet - like plot elements : it is driven by revenge - motivated actions , contains ghost - like characters ( Abel Magwitch and Miss Havisham ) , and focuses on the hero 's guilt . Academic Alexander Welsh notes that Great Expectations is an `` autobiographical novel '' and `` anticipates psychoanalytic readings of Hamlet itself '' . About the same time , George Eliot 's The Mill on the Floss was published , introducing Maggie Tulliver `` who is explicitly compared with Hamlet '' though `` with a reputation for sanity '' .
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet may be the most - filmed play of all time . The most notable theatrical releases were George Cukor 's multi-Oscar - nominated 1936 production , Franco Zeffirelli 's 1968 version , and Baz Luhrmann 's 1996 MTV - inspired Romeo + Juliet . The latter two were both , in their time , the highest - grossing Shakespeare film ever . Romeo and Juliet was first filmed in the silent era , by Georges Méliès , although his film is now lost . The play was first heard on film in The Hollywood Revue of 1929 , in which John Gilbert recited the balcony scene opposite Norma Shearer . Leslie
Hellenistic period
The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy , the only few surviving representative texts being those of Menander ( born 342 / 1 BC ) . Only one play , Dyskolos , survives in its entirety . The plots of this new Hellenistic comedy of manners were more domestic and formulaic , stereotypical low born characters such as slaves became more important , the language was colloquial and major motifs included escapism , marriage , romance and luck ( Tyche ) . Though no Hellenistic tragedy remains intact , they were still widely produced during the period , yet it seems that there was no major breakthrough in style , remaining within the classical model . The Supplementum Hellenisticum , a modern collection of extant fragments , contains the fragments of 150 authors .