Theatre in Review: King Lear (The Public Theater)

	Michael McKean and Sam Waterston..

King Lear, as Shakespeare wrote it, begins with pomp and ceremony and rapidly moves toward chaos and ruin. Oddly enough, The Public Theater's current revival moves in the other direction. Ill-designed and indifferently cast, it begins calamitously, yet picks up momentum as it goes, achieving some stunning effects.

But first, there's Miriam Buether's set, a neutral space framed by a curved upstage wall and backed by a curtain made of chainmail. The latter is a truly terrible idea. As character after character enters through it, it sways incessantly, stealing one's attention from the cast, and making an unholy amount of noise; it's both visually drab and intrusive. The curtain, which moves up and downstage, also reconfigures the space in less-than-helpful ways. At one point, it comes so far downstage that, during a principal confrontation, the actors are forced to stand awkwardly in a row.

Then there's Sam Waterston's Lear, who is a real puzzle at first. His aristocratic vocal manner belies his lack of royal authority; he barely seems to be a king at all. From the moment he enters, he appears to be on a mysterious wavelength that only he can access. Is the actor hinting at physical frailty? The onset of dementia? Is his Lear simply an irritable old coot? The possibilities are endless and confusing. Complicating matters, at the performance I attended, Waterston seemed to be in vocal distress in the early scenes, raising the unsettling notion that he might not make it through the night.

Add to this a company that sometimes seems to be speeding its way through the text, unconcerned by matters of nuance or subtext, and you have every right to expect the worst. A number of performances never really gel. Kelli O'Hara has done finely detailed work in musicals, but her Regan seems more a rough sketch of the character than the real thing; an essential fierceness is missing. As her husband, the Duke of Cornwall, Frank Wood rushes through his lines, often blurring the words. Seth Gilliam's Edmund is oddly lacking in menace and malignity, even as he continues to play every possible angle to gain personal advantage. Bill Irwin's Fool seems to have been imported-- costume and all -- from one of his clown shows. An hour into its running time, you might be justified in assuming that this King Lear is a tragedy in all the wrong ways.

But something unusual happens; once Regan and Goneril definitively turn against their father, that damn curtain is dispatched in a fairly spectacular coup de théâtre and, as Lear is left to roam the countryside in a frenzy of madness, the production begins to find a form and focus. The blinding of the Earl of Gloucester is staged with grisly brio, and the first half ends intriguingly with Regan shrinking from Cornwall as she realizes, for the first time, that her husband is simply not ruthless enough.

After the intermission, the company finds a more secure hold on the play's vicious turns of fate. Enid Graham's neurotically self-justifying Goneril -- her insincere paean to Lear in the opening fools no one but Lear -- gains in power with each pitiless decision, even as Richard Topol's well-spoken Duke of Cornwall begins to turn from her in horror. Michael McKean's Gloucester, a dullish majordomo figure in the first half, becomes a true object of pity and terror, his bloodstained face and bewilderment at the violence done him leaving an indelible impression. Arian Moayed's Edgar is pitiable when posing as the maddened Tom, and, having re-assumed his true identity, becomes a dignified man of action. John Douglas Thompson's Earl of Kent is both well-spoken and a pillar of sympathy throughout. Kristen Connolly's Cordelia is believably disgusted at her sisters' self-serving behavior and grows in stature as the evening progresses. There's also a fascinatingly sinister turn by Michael Crane as Goneril's eerily self-possessed steward, his poker face betraying no opinion regarding the horrors that are unfolding around him.

If MacDonald's staging lacks an overarching point of view, it has its moments. The way Regan and Goneril shrink from Lear's curses tells you something unflattering about his relationship with his daughters; there's the intriguing suggestion that, evil though they may be, the ladies' disdain for their parent may be well-founded. There's a chilling moment when Lear first realizes the depth of his daughters' betrayal ("They durst not do't/They could not, would not do 't; 'tis worse than murder"), making you realize how terrible Lear's loss of power and position must be. There's a strangely effective bit of business when the Fool, much the worse for wear, picks up his ruined ukulele, and a string of chainmail falls out; it's a surprising and powerful gesture of futility. The sight of Lear cradling the blinded, ravaged Gloucester is truly almost unbearable, as is his childlike cry, "Do not abuse me." By the time he appears bearing the body of Cordelia, this Lear has become more than sufficiently informed by the terrors of the earth.

Once the curtain is out of the way, Buether's set works perfectly well, and Christopher Akerlind's lighting, which in the early scenes is surprisingly flat and uninteresting, begins to show some muscle, with strongly articulated angles and shadowy effects. Gabriel Berry's costumes pull together silhouettes and ideas from a variety of time frames -- including medieval times, the Edwardian era, and today -- to largely good effect. She also works a limited color palette, imbuing Regan and Goneril with disturbing bursts of color. Darron L West's sound design works extremely effectively in concert with Akerlind's lightning effects to create some disturbing storm sequences; he also supplies the action with a number of sinister trumpet flourishes.

Waterston's Lear is not so much a great man brought low as a foolish man who, in the face of unbearable losses, achieves a tremendous tenderness; also, the production convincingly presents a picture of a kingdom in collapse. Lear, dispossessed of his kingdom and betrayed by his loved ones, cries out, "You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need." You may find yourself quietly uttering similar sentiments as this production struggles to find its footing. In this case, patience will be rewarded.--David Barbour