"I need to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where all sins are forgiven!"
Richard Coeur de Lion, The Lionheart ... Richard the First of England, Duke of Aquitaine, of Normandy and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, of Maine and Nantes, Overlord of Brittany ... Malek al-Inkitar to Arabic speakers ...
So many titles and monickers, so many legends, from the 12th century, on, legends of his courage and subtlety--and ruthlessness--in war, of his mission as crusader, his capture for ransom on return and supposed discovery by the troubadour Blondel. These legends were taken up again--and added to--by Sir Walter Scott in 'Ivanhoe' and 'The Talisman,' the first linking him with Robin Hood, the second bringing up the old legend of the Ismaili "Assassins" during the Crusades. He's a major player in William Goldman's witty play 'The Lion on Winter,' as one of the scheming sons of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, played in the film by Antony Hopkins ...
Now Gary Graves, co-director of Central Works, has written an ambitious trilogy on Richard, staged with equal ambition--and great verve--by Jan Zvaifler, the troupe's other director. A kind of intimate epic is unfolding in the confines of the City Club where Central Works has been in residence for years, taking its audiences on whirlwind tours of medieval Britain, Europe, the Mediterranean and the Levant, as absorbing an entertainment as any offered by bigger theaters with greater budgets--indeed, more so--or many cinema blockbusters.
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