A gruesome Richard III

You do not need to accept the veracity of Shakespeare's depiction of the English monarch Richard III to savor the play. It is one of Shakespeare's early works, when he was focusing on history and when he was most cognizant of his need not to offend the last Tudor, Elizabeth I. After all, Richmond, who wins the day at the Battle of Bosworth Field and ends the play by dispatching Richard, became the first Tudor king, Henry VII.

Indeed, the great work that seeks to clear Richard's name, Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, points to none other than Henry VII as the real villain who was responsible for the murder of the two princes in the Tower of London, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York. Another major figure who helped establish Richard's vile reputation was Laurence Olivier, whose portrayal of Richard as a hunchbacked, snarling monster in the 1950s-era movie he produced contributed to confirming the evil image of the leading role.

Nevertheless, Olivier and many other wonderful actors have performed wonders in conveying the essence of a Shakespearean villain who gives Iago and Macbeth a run for their wickedness. Jose Ferrer led a marvelous cast on Broadway way back when and a few years ago, Stacy Keach shone in the part at the Shakespeare Theatre here in Washington.

The current production there, however, which we saw last Saturday night, goes off in the wrong direction. Matthew Rauch plays Richard and his performance is fine. But the director, David Muse, engaged by departing managing director Michael Kahn in his last season, has chosen to focus mostly on presenting gory death scenes to emphasize the lengthy chain of murders Richard directs. The  scenes seem to draw on both hospital-like execution settings and the atmosphere of a totalitarian state.

There's more blood that you see in even Jacobean tragedies such as Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling. That's not necessarily terrible but here it does not contribute to the impact of the play, and in fact, likely overshadows some of the more engaging sections that Shakespeare wrote which have been edited out to extend these death scenes. The play's length does support selective cuts, but I would take issue with the ones made here.

Left Coasting

 Returned to a favorite place to spend a few nice days, San Diego, and courtesy of the better half, who was presenting at a program on negotiation for lawyers, the time is being spent at the Hotel del Coronado, a charming place that needs no instruction in how to charge but which overcomes all shortcomings when you gaze out at the breakers on the ocean in one direction and the sailboats in the sun on the bay in the other.

I've been coming out here since I was a teenager and I even remember when you could only get to Coronado on the ferry. Biggest surprise was driving over what is now the free bridge that rises way up on the bay. I've been at this hostelry a few times previously, always for conferences or the like. It's one of those places where you're not surprised when you run into someone you haven't seen for years who's attending a different conference.

The weather now limits beach enjoyment to walking on the beach, which, with the La Jolla Shores, might be one of the choicest spots to engage in beach jaunts. As usually occurs, timing was off for cultural opportunities: Rigoletto just finished at the San Diego Opera and a new musical based on the life of Princess Diana (titled creatively, Diana) opens the day after we depart. However, last week I caught a rehearsal at the National Symphony in Kennedy Center which began with the glorious Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, and that makes up for quite a few missed shows.

There's also good dining to be had in San Diego, and even in Coronado outside the Del. That means there are nice spots that offer a somewhat better price than the Del's stratospheric scale. Clayton's Coffee Shop is a satisfying place to start the day with one of the most comprehensive breakfast menus around. And the night before we left, there was a delightful group dinner at Buck's Fishing and Camping following a reading at Politics & Prose by Eileen's old friend from Boston days, Elinor Lipman, who had read from her new novel, Good Riddance.

There's also the Road Runner Sports headquarters and clearance stores up near Miramar which offer not only the most cutting-edge running shoes but salespeople who know how to make sure the shoe fits. It even makes me feel when I'm there that in some way, shape, or form I'm actually still running races instead of walking. Since I need all the encouragement I can get in this direction, it's also great to find that there still are a good number of laid-back folks out here on the Left Coast.

Symphony Hall, Boston

Have been enjoying a Boston weekend, occasioned by attending a Cornell alumni meeting but enabling some old and new pleasures as well. The Hub was cool and windy at times, but for the second weekend in February, no complaints are lodged. Started out with a lunch at the nearest Legal Seafood, this one at Copley Place, where you can order fish chowder, unavailable at any of their outposts outside the Boston area. It's always worth it. And they now call "schrod" cod, because, as the waitress helpfully advised, that's what it is and when it used to say schrod on the menu, it could have been a lot of different fish.

One of the highlights was, surprisingly, to me at least, was my first time inside Symphony Hall, to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra play a modern piece by Olly Wilson, a violin concerto by Karol Szymanowski with soloist Lisa Batiashvili, and Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3. Ms. Batiashvili played beautifully and her part seemed to overwhelm the rest, both because of how it was written and her playing. She returned after the concert to sign CDs of which we had her autograph one for Vanessa. The Copland was pleasant and the fourth movement made it glorious, since he incorporated in it his famous Fanfare for the Common Man, which returns to end the symphony on a triumphant note, apppropriate for the first posrwar year when it premiered: 1946.

Symphony Hall itself, designed by Charles McKim of McKim, Mead & White fame for its 1900 opening, is a grand old place, with its perfect acoustics clearly in evidence for both piano and forte. The programs are the most comprehensive I've ever encountered, which is what one would expect from the Athens of America, the sobriquet it was still grasping when the hall was built. And the whole scene has a particular charm, emphasized by the musicians in tails and Ms. Batiashvili, a German violinist born in Georgia, even playing an encore before intermission.

Down the way from Symphony Hall is the Museum of Fine Arts, which featured an enthralling Ansel Adams show, including examples of his predecessors like Carleton Watkins and photographers who drew from Adams's legacy. The only missing part I noticed was the lack of any prints by Edward S. Curtis, who assembled a major first collection of Native American portraits. There's a book of them in the shop but none in the exhibit. The Adams prints are as amazing as ever, with some good commentary including how he jumped from his car to shoot Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, and gauged his light by knowing how bright the moon was and how quickly he needed to set up and shoot because the moon would soon disappear behind some clouds.

Then upstairs at MFA are the wonderful range of Monets and other Impressionists, which were delightful, and many other highlights we didn't get to savor. We also spent a great evening with my cousins Vikki and Gerry in Cambridge, and rode the T. Recently was sent a journal article dug up upon the death of the 92-year-old lyricist who wrote the MTA song, popularized by the Kingston Trio. It was fascinating to recall how the song had been written for the mayoral campaign (unsuccessful) in 1949 of Walter A. O'Brien, whom the Trio changed to George at the end of their version of the song. And seeing the lyrics reminded me that I was right in remembering that Charlie got on at the Kendall Square Station headed for Jamaica Plain but his wife slipped him the sandwich at what was the Scollay Square Station. Now the Man Who Never Returned is memorialized in the ticket and card you use to enter the system: the Charlie Ticket and Card.