[In the following review, Bruckner praises Jerry McAllister's use and incorporation of the surrounding neighborhood in his street-stage production of Measure for Measure.]

Were it not for the neighborhood it is in, the Expanded Arts company's production of Measure for Measure might drive an audience to distraction with its determination to turn this ambiguous, moody play into a laugh circus. But the robust neighborhood steps in with its own distractions often enough to make what is in effect a series of witty comments on this, the last production this year of the company's free “Shakespeare in the Park(ing Lot)” series.

The director, Jerry McAllister, has announced that the setting is not Vienna, but Times Square right now. How to know? Since the scenery is minimal—a low platform and two small chunks of brick wall painted on plywood—a viewer more likely will conclude that the action occurs in a municipal parking lot between Ludlow and Essex Streets south of Delancey on the Lower East Side.

It certainly is not 17th-century Vienna, but it is definitely the place for this show, which has characters careering around on in-line skates, bicycles, a little red wagon and, in the case of Pompey, Shakespeare's pimp, on a small motorized scooter. That all these toys, and much of the actors' use of them, have nothing to do with the play begins to appear amusing as the neighborhood goes about its business.

As happens all over the city, in the evening an empty lot running between two streets becomes a thoroughfare. Pompey has just putted off on his scooter and the busy hypocrite Angelo has just answered his cell phone when a local youth, passing between the north-south streets, zooms across the lot on his scooter and a van using the same short cut (no traffic lights) passes the other way, driven by a man who slows down to see what's going on and then reports his findings into his own cell phone.

In this conception of the play a remarkable number of characters are souses who stagger around and call for drink, but none of them notice several different men who carry six-packs across the lot during the evening as they make their way home from Delancey Street delis. Since no stage is marked off, as families stroll through, sometimes stopping to watch for a minute, or as people carrying bags pause to rest, it gets hard to know who is in the play. At one point a young man shuffles the length of the lot, sits on the concrete base of a light stanchion and apparently drowses off. Much later, when it comes time for the Duke, posing as friar, to find someone for the executioner to behead so Angelo will not know his scheme to kill Claudio has aborted, it turns out the dozing man is none other than the subhuman prisoner Barnardine, whose neck looks perfect to the Duke.

Altogether, this city transportation department lot is a good place for this play; it provides a fine perspective. Still, the constant trolling for laughs rankles. Someone in the company should have noted early on how effective the malaprop Elbow is at tickling audiences in just two brief appearances, and thus have been inspired to restrain Lucio, Pompey and several others who ham it up non-stop.

In the end we do not know what it was all about anyway: Angelo is caught, but has he learned anything or have we learned anything from his lust, deceit and injustice? And the Duke, as always, gets the chaste Isabella, even though he is clearly responsible for much of the corruption of his associates. It is enough to make you wonder what the neighbors gazing from windows on Ludlow Street, or even a group staging a loud brawl over on Essex, think of the morals of Shakespeare as he turned old.