LORD GOD HAVE MERCY–ALL CRIMES ARE PAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIID!!!! On Saturday the Rattus and I went to New Britain, CT, to see the Hole in the Wall Theater’s punk-themed production of Richard III. I was expecting cheap thrills, something a bit chintzy but still fun.

And sure, okay, some of the acting was wobbly. But mostly this was super extra awesome! And smart, too–there were genuine insights and smart choices here. I feel like I understand the play better now, plus it was so much fun that I almost exploded. I really wish I’d seen it earlier–we went to the very last performance. I’ll definitely be checking out what this theater is doing the next time I’m in sunny New Haven.

So some thoughts: First, the punk theme isn’t quite consistent or really very thematic at all! That’s fine–I don’t think a one-to-one, “everyone is corrupt and their level of punkosity signals their level of corruption” thing would work, nor would a more explicitly ’70s Britain “winter of our discontent,” nor would a “Richard III is the story of England going crazy” thing. Instead, the punk theme was basically an excuse for lots of hilarious and terrific visuals. I mean, if you don’t love Richard of Gloucester spray-painting an anarchy sign on a wall, you basically hate freedom.

The Richard was fantastic: Nick Pollifrone, who trained at RADA. He’s having an immense amount of fun, and he sells the various choices about when to yell and when to slink. The seduction of Anne is hard to mess up, but this guy was even able to handle the really clunky “Richard is Richard; that is, I am I” speech–he spends the first half of it reflexively sarcastic, self-lacerating and self-ignoring, and then slowly becomes completely unhinged.

The cross-gender casting was also really well done. Catesby (Amanda Ratti) was a groupie-ish girlfriend type, violent and lost; Ratcliffe (Katie Corbett) was a dead-eyed and intermittently thuggish blonde (throughout her first scene she did this terrific, drugged-out stare, with slow, mindless blinks every ten seconds or so); and Hastings (Barbara Gallow) was an older feline. All of Richard’s minions captured the variety of motives you need to explain how he hung on to anybody after he started killing off his supporters. Buckingham (Ed Bernstein) is naively ambitious and a bit flighty; Hastings is overconfident in her own abilities, especially her ability to read other people; and Catesby and Ratcliffe are in it for fun, for a nihilistic, ecstatic anti-joy.

Richmond (Kenneth Semerato) was a sleek corporatist. Both he and Richard play their “rally the troops” speeches as rallying the audience, which I expect is a normal interpretation even though I don’t recall ever having seen before, and which totally took advantage of the tiny theater space. The fight in which Richard is killed was furiously physical, and there’s a nice, nice moment when Richmond limps away, echoing Richard’s own limp. (Also, most of the Battle of Bosworth Field is scored to my actual favorite Sex Pistols song, “Sub * Mission,” with some very cool choices in pairing action with song. In general the song choices here were absolutely stellar–Ratty pointed out that this was clearly a labor of love.)

The production notes were hilariously in the tank for the historical Richard. There was even an ad! YORKISTS 4EVA.

So yeah: I’m really just posting this to tell you to keep an eye out for Hole in the Wall if you’re in the area. The Rat and I were surprised and thrilled.