When they set Shakespeare᾿s Richard III into one night and eliminate most of the male characters, Italian actor and playwright Carmelo Bene᾿s Richard III or the Terrible Night of a Man of War (1977) and Flemish dramatist Peter Verhelst᾿s Richard III (2004) turn Richard᾿s story into an intimate, private tragedy. This article argues that, influenced by ideas and concepts developed by the theorists of the historical avant-gardes, both practitioners condense, fragment, atomise the story they borrow from Shakespeare, shifting the focus from the events themselves to the characters᾿ perception of the events, and foregrounding the image of the suffering or disabled body.

Keywords: Richard III, rewriting, body, narrative, the avant-garde, women.