The Flaming Lips

• This August, the outdoor concert series PDX LIVE returns with 11 shows in historic Pioneer Courthouse Square , the place where Portland comes together.
• The space is acoustically special because it slopes into a half-bowl amphitheater with stadium-like seating design that aids with live sound reinforcement.
• “PDX LIVE embodies the mission of The Square to be the foundation of a diverse and thriving downtown Portland, and True West has been creative and visionary to make these events a reality,” said Courtney Posey, president of the board of trustees for Pioneer Courthouse Square.
• “I am thrilled to see the vibrant energy of downtown Portland come alive with the PDX LIVE concerts in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

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• Shakespeare’s Richard II is a play that asks us, among other things, what it means to have power, what it means to take power, and what we’re left with when power is gone.
• It is also a play that saw Shakespeare risking some serious trouble with the God-appointed monarch of his time, Elizabeth I. Shakespeare wrote Richard II around 1595.
• Read more:
  Macbeth by William Shakespeare: a timeless exploration of violence and treachery

What went wrong?

• We were not born to sue, but to command;
  Which since we cannot do to make you friends,
  Be ready, as your lives shall answer it.
• Bolingbroke and Mowbray spend a long time prepping; after all, one of them is about to die.
• He listens to these two hotheads arguing and tries to get them to simmer down: “Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed”.
• Richard’s petty qualities are wonderfully demonstrated when he is delighted to hear that “Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick”.
• He suggests Richard’s abuses of power are serious enough to have delegitimised his position: “Landlord of England art thou now, not king.”

A dangerous play?

• When Henry Bolingbroke returns from exile to demand his stuff back, he is heading into dangerous territory by threatening Richard’s crown.
• He declares
  Not all the water in the rough rude sea
  Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.
• Not all the water in the rough rude sea
  Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.
• When Bolingbroke’s quest for recompense shifts to him taking Richard’s crown in “God’s name”, Shakespeare himself enters potentially dangerous territory.

Why does ‘divine right’ still matter?

• The “divine right of kings” may not exist now – or does it?
• It is still technically illegal in England to call for the abolition of the monarchy.
• British monarchs have sovereign immunity, which places them beyond the reach of laws that apply to ordinary citizens.
• Social, economic and political systems can also seem to be largely immune from individual questioning and dissent.

Where does that leave Richard?

• As Emma Smith, professor of Shakespeare studies at Oxford, has written, Shakespeare’s plays “prompt questions rather than supplying answers”.
• When Richard is overthrown, his place in the universe (its centre) is suddenly denied him.
• His sense of himself is thrown into disarray: he hasn’t just lost power; he has lost his understanding of who he is.
• As The Flaming Lips said, “to be thought of as a king, you don’t need a crown”.
• Richard II asks us to question our certainties, and how we understand our own sense of power and identity.

• This August, the outdoor concert series PDX LIVE returns to Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown Portland for its second year.
• View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230227005202/en/
  More than 40,000 people attended PDX LIVE concerts at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland last summer.
• (Photo: Business Wire)
  Today, True West and The Square announce the full festival lineup:
  Booking for the second iteration of PDX LIVE is again helmed by True West’s Trevor Solomon, who was the lead talent buyer for MusicfestNW when that storied festival took up residence at Pioneer Courthouse Square a decade ago.
• “The Square is proud to bring PDX LIVE back for its second year”, says Jennifer Polver, Executive Director.