"I Am Determined to Prove A Villain" is Great Theater and Bad Health Care Policy

Richard III, Act I, Scene I is my favorite Shakespearean Moment

“Now is the winter of our discontent…made glorious summer, by this Son of york…and all the clouds that have lour'd upon our house, in the deep blossom of the Ocean, buried.”

Thus begins what I consider to be among the more underrated plays in the entire canon of Bill Shakespeare.

The soon-to-be King of England was a real historical king, and he was physically deformed from the bones we can see now. He may have had scoliosis. Here are his bones.

In the very opening scene of this play, our anti-atlas chooses to let the audience know what he’s about. And it’s pissed off. He is filled with grim regret that war has come to an end:

 Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbèd steeds
 To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
 He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber
 To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

For a nasty man, this is a grim state of affairs. He lays out the details for us:

 I, that am rudely stamped and want love’s majesty
 To strut before a wa…