Assignment: Richard III (Act IV, Scenes 1 & 2)

As I caught up on my Richard III reading yesterday, I couldn't help but think about Buckingham's Sarah-Sanders role as press secretary/massager of facts. I imagine his part must have been enjoyable to write, and I'm sure that actors must also relish it. He's got elements of Polonius's obsequiousness, but with more power to influence others. I find him, as a character, irresistibly icky, and I can easily imagine him being interviewed on CNN.

So this week, as you read, choose your favorite character in the scene and write a paragraph that imagines what it might have felt like to be Shakespeare as you created this person. What would performing that role teach you? Are you attracted to this character because you admire him or her? Or are you attracted because the character embodies traits that are compellingly awful?

Let's post these thoughts next Friday.

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Today is a special day in our house because it is Tom's birthday, and he is my dear friend and partner in downpour and sunshine. We met when we were 19, moved in together at 21, got married at 26, moved to Harmony at 29, raised two beautiful loud boys, struggled with money and broken vehicles and busted well lines and stony soil and gloom and loneliness and disappointment, and here we are . . . 54 years old, transplanted into a modest city life, planning a lobster dinner and a game of cribbage, still smiling at each other, most days. I suppose it's a success story, of sorts. And certainly he is worthy of devotion: a wry, mordant, clever-handed, acerbic, silent man; a brilliant photographer; a lover of music; who works too hard every day; who says thank you for his meals and washes the dishes every night; who invents stories about the cat; who likes to win at all games but isn't a jerk when he loses; who is a terrible speller who nonetheless is not bad at crossword puzzles; who sometimes struggles to put up with my incompetences, but does. As partners, we're a patched-up machine that squeaks and bumps but keeps chugging along. I'm so grateful to be sharing a life with him.