Page 2-Sunday, November 18, 1979-The Michigan Daily

The Michigan Daily-Sunday, Novemk

HARD NOX

Theater

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A CROSTIC PUZZLE

BY
STEPHEN J.
POZSGA I
Copyright 1979
INSTRUCTIONS
Guess the words defined at the
left and write them in over
their numbered dashes. Then,
transfer each letter to the cor-
responding numbered square
in the grid above. The letters
printed in the upper-right-hand
corners of the squares indi-
cate from what clue-word a
particular square's letter
comes from. The grid, when
filled in, should read as a
quotation from a published
work. The darkened squares
are the spaces between words.
Some words may carry over
to the next line. Meanwhile,
the first letter of each guessed
word at the left, reading down,
forms an acrostic, giving the
author's name an the title of
the work from which the quote
is extracted. As words and
phrases begin to form in the
grid, you can work back and
forth from clues to grid until
the puzzle is complete.
Answer to previous puzzle
Those creatures who find
everyday experience a mud-
died jumble of events with no
predictability, no regularity,
are in grave peril. The univer-
se belongs to those who at
least to some degree have
figured it out.
Carl Sagan Boca's Brain

AMLET RAISES a broader and
more intriguing setof questions
to it audience; Macbeth offers
a closer look at the effect of committing
murder on a fundamentally sound per-
sonality; Romeo and Juliet makes a
more blissful argument about its th-
warted lovers. And yet, for all the
merits of these works, this critic's
humble opinion is that the most
engrossing, most exciting, most enter-
taining play ever written is, in its own
defiantly crude way, none other than,
Shakespeare's The Tragedy of King
Richard the Third-"Containing his
treacherous plots against his brother
Clarence, the pitiful murther of his in-
nocent nephews, his tyrannical usur-
pation; with the whole course of his
detested life, and his most deserted
death."
The lengthy title that entices one
from the front page of the first quarto
gives the reader only the scantiest in-
dication of the- dirty dealings within.
Why no mention of the fuel for the
play's most cruelly endearing circum-
stances, such as Richard's successful
wooing of the widow of one of his early
victims? How about Richard's bitter
turnabout on Buckingham-the single
most influential, obediant servant-in
his quest for the throne? Too much in-
trigue for a title, perhaps, but not for a
play-goer.
Chronologically, Richard III is the.
final work of Shakespeare's eight-play
history cycle. It relates the tortuous
rise and climactic fall of the last Plan-
taganet king. Despite its crudeness and
occasional excesses, Richard was the
Bard's first dramatic success. Before
it, Shakespeare had written two
comedies (The Comedy of Errors and
Love's Labour's Lost) and, three plays
about Richard's predecessor, Henry
VI, all of which are held to be rather dry
and uninteresting in virtually every
quarter but that of a coffee klatsch for
doctorates in English literature.
At the beginning of the tragedy,
Richard is merely the Duke of
Gloucester, an ambitious brother to an
ailing King Henry IV. He aches for the
crown as no man has ever ached. But
his charm goes beyond simple desire
for power. Richard is deformed as a
result of premature birth, and he is
coldly, frighteningly bitter about his
defect. In the monologue that opens the
play, he explains:
I, that am not shaped for
sportive tricks,
I that am rudely stamped and
want love's majesty to strut
before a wanton ambling
nymph,
I, that am curtailed of this
fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by
dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent
before my time
Into this breathing world
scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and
unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I
halt by them.
The hunchback (in some produc-
Joshua Peck reviews theater for
the Daily. 9 -

By Joshua Peck

A. Instruments designed to illustrate
the dynamics of rotating bodies
B. Costs; financial outlays
C. Solitary; withdrawn;
hermit-like
D. Science of the construction and
operation of vehicles for travel
in interplonetery or interstellar
space
E. Practice or principle of submitting
a question at issue to the whole
whole body of voters
F. A certain type of pre-med student
can be found in abundance here
(2 words)
0. Alert (3 words)
H. Occasionally; once in a while
(3 words)
I. Thrilfling; exciting
J. Offends; affronts
K. State of being balanced or
in equipoise
. "-cake" Rousseaut!es Confessions.
later attributed to
Marie Antoinette (3 words)

71 85 161 101 174 192 116 6 210 217
2 77 90 99 105 38 185 199
37 80 8 177 88 111 141 14 156
7 32 46 114 125 131 139 67 72 86 92 154
42 63 103 113 166 135 142 171 36 157,
66 74 81 93 110 149 152 167 191 195 200 209
33 55 78 62 91 98 165 178 212
23 39 94 59 75 1 133 145 164196
3 64 106 11 172 184 50 50
13 120 5 130 97 20 45
27 54 208 189 176 144 132 148 201
40 76 82 108 168 182 29 187 203 216

Or: Why one cr itic
thinks 'Richard lii' is the
most engrossing, most
exciting, most entertain-
ing play ever written.

M. Growing of plants in nutrient
solutions with or without an
inert problem to provide
- mechanical support
N. Most popular religion in terms
of number of adherents
0. Dissection of the tongue
P. Customs; practices
0. Scientist who suggested sphere
around the sun (full name)
R. Pertaining to the measurement of
infrared light from an asteroid,
for example
S. Yellowish or grayish (Comp)
T. Urban tourist attraction
U. Lightweight metal used in
oreospace industry
V. Beginning to be apparent;
commencing
W. Demands and compels
X. Deserves; estimates

21 44 117 151 159 4 51 70 95 100 136
15 43 96 169 128 119 61 175
123 60 109 147 163 138 206 173 48 153
25 188 204 134 16 49
34 137 47 56 118 150 1 183 17 186 193 214
68 10 107 115 127 140 146 155 160 180 190
35 65 158 18 202 28 52 198
52 69 143 73 124 194 205 179 215
12 22 58 41 102 121 83.129
19 57 79 104 211 197 162 122 31

tions-in others, he has only the slighest
limp) is disappointed that England is at
peace. He has no use for peacetime
pleasure, and chooses instead to "prove
a villain, and hate the idle pleasures of
these days."
One by one, Richard treacherously
engineers the death of every individual
who stands between him and absolute
power. He begins with his brother
Clarence, whom he has murdered and
stuffed in a barrel of wine in the Tower
of London. Along the way he preys on
enemies and allies alike-anyone who
opposes his designs on any matter is
fair game. He consummates his bloody
ascendance by ordering the death of his
nephews, two children whom he fears
will be perceived as having more right
to the throne than he, which in fact they
do.
IBRARY SHELVES are heavy
with tales of ambitious scoun-
drels who are willing to adapt
any means of achieving position,,
prestige, or power. Why this obsession
with the crooked Plantaganet? Two
reasons, I think: One, that Richard's
raison d'etre is not quite as simple as
yearning for the throne; two, a more
familiar and constant trait seems to be
a compulsive desire to deceive
everyone in the court, to see how many
people around him he ca-n have
believing that he is something less than
a monster. His greatest pleasures seem
to be spawned not so much of coming
that much closer to the seat of power,
as of seeing yet another unknowing
pawn taken in by his ostensibly
straightforward and decent aims.
Richard, in short, is a liar of such skill
and magnitude that no 20th Century
politician need feel embarrassed again
about painting a figurative halo about
his or her head in the process of vying
for office.
The other element in the Plan-
taganet's appeal is his lack of any
genuine confidante on stage. He makes
us feel unique and important, in that no
one else gets a glimpse of his workings
and machinations as they are laid.
Even-his henchmen might well regard
him as nothing more than exceptionally
ruthless; ' for 'they never -see 'him,
exuttifgin treacherv as we do.:' ;

The scene in the first act in which
Clarlence is eliminated is gripping not
only for the obvious reason-that any
well-written discussion between a hired
murderer and the intended victim
would be-but also for the payoff we are
offered just before they sink their
blades into him. We see a man ab-
solutely confident that his brother
Richard is an ally who will do anything
he can to countermand the death order
Clarence ,believes the king to have
signed:
Clarence:If you do love my
brother, hate not me.... I will send
you to my brother Gloucester who
will reward you better for my life
than Edward will for tidings of my
death.
Second Murderer: You are
deceived; your brother Gloucester
hates you.
Clarence: 0, no, he loves me and
he holds me dear. Go you to him
from me. . .. Tell him, that when
our princely father York... charged
us from his soul to love each other,
He little thought of this divided
friendship.
Bid Gloucester think on this, and he
will weep.
First Murderer: Ay, millstones,
as he lessoned us to weep.
Clarence: O, do not slander him,
for he is kind.
First Murderer: Right as snow in
harvest. Come, you deceive your-
self. Tis he that sends us to destroy
you here.
Clarence: It cannot be.. .
The episodes of cynically disguised
deception are so numerous as to render
selecting a favorite instance of men-
dacity a chore. For some, the crowning
moment is the scene at Baynard's
Castle where Richard stages a sort of
pageant to woo the people of London in-
to demanding his coronation. His con-
federates assembly the townspeople,
spread vicious rumors about the
legitimacy of the other contenders for
the throne, and then prime them for an
attempt to "force" Richard to accept
their. support. Crookback.. then appears
ohaba kony'of the' castle, ,flanked by'

bishops, holdinj
which he is no
familiar). His 1
cede to their d
funniest line in
tragedies or hist
Alas, why wou
on me?
Iam unfit fors
I do beseech y
I cannot nor I
To the surprri
Richard's side C
that of no one on
finally surrende
the crown.
For me, Rich
Anne earlier in
pressive and m
than all his othe
She has lost her
husband, to th
sword during t
Roses.
Richard has n
Anne's estimat
astonishing:
She:. . . 0,
and virtuo
He: The bett<
heaven tha
She. He is in
shalt never
He: Let him ti
send him t
For he was
than earth.
She: And thou
but hell.
He: Yes, one p;
hear me na
She: Some dung
He: Your bedci
A scant few n
agreed to let him
leaves, and he la
woman in this
ever woman in t
goes on, in his us
derisive and mal
himself jokingly
There may be
Shakespeare as
as the Crookba
Hamlet by word
the Folio, but t
strumental to the
Richard is in 14 c
but the other 11
wicked elan. WhI
Hastings remark
of mine cut fror
I'll see the crow!
you know that he
truth. You can,
whispering affirn
That's a big r
has been handed
felt in every scen
script is not perf4
seems to creep
treatment of it),
as enigmatic,
dangerous as his
contradictory as'
Because . . .
look fair,
Smile in men'sj
deceive, an
Duck with Fren
courtesy,
I must be held

9 181 213 126 24 87
84 207 112 26 89

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