Look What I Found in the Parking Lot: Richard III

Alessandro Colla as Richard; Arash Mokhtar; Sheri Graubert

This is a review of a unique experience that’s there for your taking.  It costs nothing, yet it is of great value as some Shakespearean character might say if he found it, as I did, in a parking lot.  So overlooked but so worth looking at over and over and over… like a precious gem turned over in one’s hand.

On the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in a municipal parking lot on the corner of Broome and Ludlow, Richard III set about his treacherous ascent to the throne once again.  An audience of more than 200 sat in the open air on white plastic chairs and blankets, alternately charmed, amused and disgusted by his antics, but entertained throughout for every one of the 145 minutes that the show runs.

Some stood draped over the metallic beasts that signal our modern age – cars – after all, we were in a working parking lot – and some of these beasts came and went driven by some motivation different than ours.  We were staying put to see how this drama would play out, reminded by our modern setting that the things that define an age may change, but human interactions do not, and words that capture them with such art outlast all change. 

Alessandro Colla gives us a witty, devilish, energetic Richard III.  He is as immune to remorse as Shakespeare wrote him, yet capable of assuming the attitude of the truest of penitents when it serves his purposes, while feeling none of the emotions he so aptly expresses.   Colla embodies the essential Richard, a man of action who never lets the residue of his last action dampen his next one.  His genius is the degree to which he convinces others that the destruction he visited yesterday will create a better tomorrow, even for the survivors of those he has destroyed.  Colla does all of this very well.

Much has been made in the news recently that the historical Richard III’s bones were found earlier this year under a parking lot.  Over the last 20 years, Shakespeare in the Parking Lot has given more than 50 productions of Shakespeare’s plays for more than 40,000 at Broome and Ludlow, but it was with particular delight spurred by the news that this production came about.  The audience can feel this.  Without reservation, you could say that Alessandro Colla’s performance resurrects Richard III from the parking lot.

Sheri Graubert excels as Queen Margaret.  She is the first of Richard’s victims, in actions that take place just before the start of the play, the murder of her husband, the king, and her son.  This is a performance so full of emotion and articulated outrage that it freezes you in your seat.   Ms. Graubert acts with her entire body.  Her movements and facial expressions tell the story of what she has to say so well that we do not even need the words, but the words coming out of her mouth increase the impact by infinite orders of magnitude.   She is Richard’s accuser.  She will neither bend nor break.  If Richard is reality, then she is, in Ms. Graubert’s embodiment, a protest against the way things are – primal, excruciatingly uncomfortable, compelling.

An overwhelming scene in Act IV calls to mind a famous sculpture of three sorrowful women, except these women eloquently speak their grief:  Veronica Cruz as Queen Elizabeth; Kristin Johansen as the Duchess of York; and Sheri Graubert as Queen Margaret deliver a moving, passionate, searing display of emotion which you can read on the faces of the audience as you look around, and then you remember you are in a parking lot.

You have no excuse not to park yourself there.

 

Richard III runs through August 17, Thursday, Friday, Saturday 8PM.  It is directed by Hamilton Clancy and performed by the Drilling Company.  www.drillingcompany.org.  For more information, www.shakespeareintheparkinglot.com.