Seize the King

Abstract

Reviewed by: Seize the King Jennifer A. Low Seize the King Presented by the Classical Theatre of Harlem at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, Marcus Garvey Park, New York, NY. 6–29 July 2021. Written by Will Power. Directed by Carl Cofield. Choreography by Tiffany Rea-Fisher. Scenic design by Christopher and Justin Swader. Lighting design by Alan C. Edwards. Costumes by Mika Eubanks. Sound design and music by Frederick Kennedy. With Ro Boddie (Richard the Duke), R. J. Foster (Hastings), Andrea Patterson (Queen Woodville), Alisha Espinosa (Lady Anne/Edward V), Carson Elrod (Buckingham); Daniela Funicello, Tracy Dunbar, Jenny Hegarty Freeman, Hannah Gross, and Alisa Gregory (dancers). New York has another Shakespeare in the Park, and its passion, intensity, and innovation rival that of the Public Theater’s summer stage in Joe Papp’s heyday. The Classical Theatre of Harlem has presented free theater each summer since 2013 at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, mounting such productions as Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, and The Bacchae. This venue, a bandshell in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, underwent a renovation completed in 2011; it gained state-of-the-art lighting, sound hookups, and a wider stage that promoted a more intimate and direct relationship between performers and audience members. The Classical Theatre of Harlem is helmed by Producing Artistic Director Ty Jones, the Obie-award-winning actor best known for his role on the Starz show Power, and Associate Artistic Director Carl Cofield, who was recently named chair of the graduate acting program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. The company’s stated mission is to tell stories through the lens of the African diaspora, combining original adaptations, music, and dance to present great classics of world literature. [End Page 156] From 6 July to 29 July 2021, the company presented the New York premiere of Will Power’s reimagining of Richard III. His play Seize the King is written in iambic pentameter but also very much in the American vernacular. Power is a playwright, actor, and rapper described as one of the pioneers and co-creators of hip hop theater. Having performed in the 1998 film Drylongso and on several television shows including Russell Simmons’s Def Poetry Jam, Power turned to playwriting, combining music, rhymed dialogue, and choreography in his dramas. Seize the King, first performed in 2018, seems to be a response to America’s political climate at that time: Power asserted in an interview that in times of polarization and dysfunction, “you have to go back to the past and imagine what those old stories are for today” (McVicker). Power’s play begins with the death of Edward IV, the king who re-ascends the throne shortly before the start of Shakespeare’s Richard III. Like Shakespeare, Power spotlights Richard’s skillful manipulation of allies and adversaries, creating a tighter and more muscular plotline by focusing on just six named characters. Power’s fluent verse echoed a myriad of dramatic lines from a range of Shakespeare plays. Early on, his Richard the Duke (Ro Boddie in this production) soliloquized, Now I am through with sloppy secondsSecond in line, second in command, second best, second born,No more, the hour now is mine. This Richard’s sentiments echo those of Shakespeare’s Edmund in King Lear, reiterating the word “second” as Shakespeare reiterates “base.” Power also makes frequent use of blunt, forthright American colloquialism; just as he works with the expression “sloppy seconds,” he later builds on the phrase “Kiss my ass.” When Elizabeth Woodville, the Queen, demands that Richard “Kiss my feet, and beg for forgiveness/Kiss it. Kiss it. Kiss it motherfucker!” (echoing Jean Genet’s bishop), Richard does so, only to be met with another demand: “Now kiss my ass.” “Ass” ups the ante of “feet” and, by turning in profile and sticking out her posterior, Queen Woodville (Andrea Patterson) showed she intended the phrase literally. Power then inverted the phrase, turning to the other meaning of “kiss my ass”—absolutely not. Richard kissed Queen Woodville’s posterior before us––down front and center-stage––in order to procure her signature, which was necessary to finalize the order that would make him Protector of...