Tonight we convened to watch the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s production of King Richard the 3rd, for free mind you.  We being Mark and Merri Abels, Don Baird and Dorthy White and Anne and I.  The impedes behind this endeavor was Dorthy aka DJ.  The justification for this enterprise was Anne’s birthday, belated.  Hey it is still May!

Merri and Mark: Merri is a teacher and a quilter.  Mark as his pose might suggest is a thespian himself.  A comment on his part promoting his upcoming play would be welcomed.

DJ coralled these Crazy Cats.  My good friend Don is always a welcome compainion.

King Richard the 3rd is Shakespeare’s second longest play after Hamlet.  Richard is the villian, murdering kin and anyone else who stood in his way to the throne.  As Shakesphere’s villians go he is good, maybe even the best.  By that I mean he is bad.  I mean very bad.  In the 1st act he successfully woos the woman who is the wife and daughter-in-law of the two men he just killed. 

At intermission one of the concessionairs summed it up best with her call, “Richard is a downer, ice cream is an upper, we all scream for ice cream.”

Back to the play: Unfortunately, their relationship sorta hit the rocks when Richard proceed to murder the rest of her family.  After that work really gets in the way of his love life.  The good news is that near the end of the play Richard develops spirtitually.  The ghost of all the people that he has murdered come back to haunt him.  Finally, he shout the play’s signature line:  A bicycle, a bicycle, my kingdom for a bicycle!

To that end guess who we ran into on the way to the car?  Dan and Annie biked over to the play and beat us home.