Made glorious summer, indeed.

Last night I headed downtown to the Folger Shakespeare Library to see their production of Richard III. Oh, how I love that play, but can I take a moment to talk about the Folger? Do you know about this place? It has the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's works. There are 228 copies of the First Folio still in existence. The Folger has 82 copies. 82 copies! In comparison, the National Library of the UK, the country where Shakespeare was born, lived, and wrote, has two copies. Two. Yeah. This place is so cool, and they put on great Shakespeare productions.

The theater usually looks like this (reminiscent of The Globe, eh?) but for Richard, they put the stage where the seats are, and placed the audience on four sides around it.

The stage had lots of trap doors that they used for the many, many murder scenes. Characters were drowned, strangled, stabbed, etc. and then pulled under the stage. They also projected spooky light up from underneath the stage, which was particularly effective when the ghosts of all Richard's victims visit him on the eve of the Battle of Bosworth Field.

Quite fierce, and yet charming enough to break the fourth wall.

A couple of little redhead brothers played the Princes in the Tower.

Queen Elizabeth

Richard and the treacherous Lord Stanley

"Was ever woman in this humor won?"

The final tableau. Hideous iPhone photo in low light. Sorry.

The coolest thing is that, after Richard was dragged down through the trap door in the center of the stage ("My kingdom for a horse!"), the play ended with the tableau of his skeleton lying under the glass, just like it was recently found lying under a parking lot in Leicester. Macabre and delightful, just like this play.