Skakespeare as we like it: out in the parking lot

"Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown
more than your enemies."

Jane Bradley plays Rosalind in As You Like It.
(photo: Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation)

In its new home, outback of The Clemente, The Drilling Company's popular Shakespeare in the Parking Lot summer series brightly powers ahead with a Victorian steampunk As You Like It. This en plein air, in-the-round romantic comedy--with its multiple lovers and lasses--has tasty delights, chief among them detailed and zestful performances from Jane Bradley (Rosalind), Elaine Ivy Harris (Celia), Emmanuel Elpenord (Oliver) and Alessandro Colla (Touchstone). Of these, Bradley and Colla seem particularly resourceful--Colla remaining comically inventive and an unsinkable Bradley at sharp physical and vocal energy from start to finish.

Of course, this Lower East Side Forest of Arden has--for its adaptable players and equally adaptable audience--some unique features. Shakespeare's wit and Clancy's motley crew must compete with sirens and churning helicopters and Mr. Softee trucks, odd smells from takeout dinners and the occasional SUV driver scattering viewers as he attempts to back into the street.

Getting to the lot in a tardy fashion means you might have to peer around heads and bodies as you strain to follow the speaking actors. The rare, welcome cool breezes of a mid-July evening carry away the cast's less-robust voices. And if an actor turns the other way or speaks into his partner's neck....well, what did he just say?

But all of that is to be expected, part of the Shakespeare in the Parking Lot homemade fun. Quick costume changes behind a handy car. Simple strings of lights to relieve the dark when night settles in. Creatively shabby costuming and sometimes balky props that add to a feeling of intimacy, of something wonderfully weird and kind of sweet gifted to a neighborhood. And it's all free.

As You Like It runs through July 26 with performances at 8pm. Running time: Two hours. Bring your own chair, if you'd like. And--wonder of wonders!--Shakespeare in the Parking Lot now has its own Port-O-San!

Parking lot behind The Clemente
(The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center)
114 Norfolk Street (between Delancey and Rivington Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Other Shakespeare in the Parking Lot productions this season:

Macbeth, directed by Hamilton Clancy, at The Clemente parking lot, July 30-August 15

Romeo and Juliet at Bryant Park, directed by Dave Marantz, July 17-August 2

The Taming of the Shrew at The Clemente parking lot, directed by Alessandro Colla, September 4 to 20

Click here for complete information and schedules.

Park yourself in front of Shakespeare

Municipal Parking Lot
at Ludlow and Broome Streets
(c)2013, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

No, it's not.

It's a theater.

Because I say it is. 

And so does The Drilling Company whose open-air "Shakespeare in the Parking Lot" production of Cymbeline plays out across the asphalt now through July 27.

But as muggy summer evening gives way to night, and a few SUVs pull into parking spaces, the magic charm starts to wear off just a bit. 

But not before Hamilton Clancy's talented ensemble, the Lower East Side vibe and Con Edison ("Thanks for the street light," says Clancy) conspire to build up that charm over a straight two-hours and fifteen-minutes of charged action.

Keldrick Crowder as Cymbeline, King of Britain, with audience
(photo by Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation)

Lightsabers at the ready
L-r: Mark Byrne, Skylar Gallun and David Sitler
(photo by Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation)

Cheekily anachronistic elements--like characters wielding lightsabers or snacking on a bag of chips--appear to be remnants of time-shifting ideas Clancy had for this production. But their appearance in this vestpocket of the urban everyday has a funny way of making the players look like neighborhood kids gathered to put on a show. In this case, pretty sophisticated, highly trained kids. But kids, nonetheless, making do with their makeshift platform stages and curtains and props. And Clancy's actors--notably Andy Markert as comically apoplectic Cloten and the electric Mark Byrne as Guiderius--foreground a heady playfulness in Shakespeare's overstuffed plot that wins out over other elements like romance and horror. 

Amanda Dillard as Imogen, the princess
(photo by  Lee Wexler/Images for Innovation)

Playing Shakespeare outdoors and unamplified runs the risk of losing choice words to the air. Some of Cymbeline's performers were largely inaudible when out of range. Amanda Dillard (Imogen) delivered nearly everything at irritating screech pitch. But Philip Rossi's Posthumus Leonatus and Lukas Raphael's Iachimo, the two enemies, have wonderful voices that project just enough while retaining suppleness and subtlety. The same can be said for Byrne. For the show's vocal champion, though, see Keldrick Crowder, Cymbeline himself, who has a voice like solar wind and body language to match. If you go, you might catch a glimpse of Crowder "offstage," practicing what looks like qigong and silently mouthing his upcoming lines before heading back for the final scene. All part of the fun!

Admission is free, though donations are happily accepted. Bring cold drinks and fans. Come early for a good seat, or bring your own chair. And, no worries: Friendly nearby bars and restaurants welcome you to make a pit stop, if need be.

Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm through July 27. For information, click here or call 212-873-9050.

For information on The Drilling Company's upcoming "Shakespeare in the Parking Lot" production of Richard3, click here.

Municipal Parking Lot

Ludlow and Broome Streets, Manhattan (one block south of Delancey Street)

(map/directions)

A lot of Shakespeare

'Julius Caesar' - Shakespeare in the Parking Lot Looks at a Dictator

by Anita Gates, The New York Times, August 5, 2010