looking for Richard

At last, our little play-reading group, having puttered its way through Shakespeare's history cycle in between other things, has arrived at Richard III. I've been assigning the big meaty parts in the earlier history plays to the other members so that I could save up this one for myself. I remember famous Richards I've seen on stage or screen and let their readings of individual lines leave inflections on my own. I remember Ian McKellen saying "But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks" or Kevin Spacey, you should excuse the expression, saying "What though I killed her husband and her father" or Al Pacino's bone-chilling rendition of "I'll have her, but I will not keep her long."

We had a little sprinkling of rain today. No wind. That is what it's like living on the far, far edge of a tropical storm.