This isn't a new topic for me, but the importance of reading a Shakespeare text line by line occurred to me again today as I was reviewing the first act of Richard III. The unfortunate fact is that many strands crucial to understanding the plot are cut in most theatre productions (and virtually every film version) in a play that, as the conclusion of a tetralogy, is already quite complex on its own. Not only that, but virtually every line is written as a rejoinder to what was said immediately before. Therefore any excision will lead to a line being stranded on its own at the risk of completely baffling an audience member. Directors who make such decisions usually do so in the name of trying to simplify things, and it's ironic because what's usually achieved is the opposite. (And if the goal isn't simplification, then time considerations are brought up as the reason; my solution: pick up the tempo.) My main point with all of this is that the best, perhaps the only, way of thoroughly understanding a Shakespeare play is to read it with an effort appropriate to what went into its writing.