DUCHESS       Alack poor Richard, where rode he the whilst?

YORK              As in a theatre the eyes of men

After a well-graced actor leaves the stage

Are idly bent on him that enters next,

Thinking his prattle to be tedious,

Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes

Did scowl on gentle Richard.           (5.2.22-28)

Poor Richard, gentle Richard; no longer king, but affectionate pity from aunt and uncle and surely, guiltily, from the audience, who are so resonantly implicated in York’s theatrical conceit. You’ve done it too, you fickle, fickle people: once the star’s left the stage (Richard Burbage, say, ironically almost certainly playing Richard, or Edward Alleyn, of the rival Admiral’s Men, who would retire at least temporarily in 1597), once he’s gone, you lose interest, you rustle your programmes and stealthily check your phones and revert to thinking, well, go on, impress me then. You don’t really pay attention, you think that everything that unlucky actor has to say is tedious prattle. You look at him with contempt—even if he’s doing his best, a lovely actor really, making the most of a difficult role, a tricky transition, a rather slapdash bit of writing—because he’s not the other one, the one who’s just left, the star. Oh, he used to be good—you might have seen him in—that other thing? But, rather lost it, recently. Out in the limelight, home in the rain, and a king is merely another actor, strutting and fretting, a walking shadow, being passed over for the next up and coming thing. Poor Richard.