"The world is grown so bad that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch"

I couldn't sit still for so long, so I took another call to work a show in the evenings. This time, an excellent production of Richard III. I am enjoying it.
I love Shakespeare's histories although they are not produced as frequently as the comedies or as well known as the tragedies. The Henry cycle, laying out the whole War of the Roses, is one of my favorite moments in literary and European history.
With this production, there has been the usual press describing the incredible relevancy of this story of a unstopped power grab, given today's state of affairs. And while Richard's determination to just make everyone go his way by manipulation and then by force does have some resonance with current politics, I think the press has it a little wrong. They always write this about Shakespears. The reason Shakespeare is still produced at all is because his work is ALWAYS relevant to the current state in some way. The comedies will ring true as long as people fall in love and make fools of themselves; the tragedies as long as folks fall to ambition and avarice. And the histories until our memory grows long enough to stop making the same mistakes.
In the mean time, it is the playwrite's and actors' gifts to make us see and understand the action of the time and hopefully reflect on our own. Given how dark and brutal and lawless the time was for these characters, kings, clergy and nobility, how vicious daily life must have been for the general population. When Marguerite d'Anjou curses Elizabeth to live long enough to bury her children, I am thrummed.