IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

'King Lear' with Sam Waterston gets tripped up

We've had two British productions of "King Lear" hit New York in the past six months. Now it's the Yanks' turn with Sam Waterston leading The Public Theater's production of Shakespeare's royally mad monarch.
/ Source: The Associated Press

We've had two British productions of "King Lear" hit New York in the past six months. Now it's the Yanks' turn with Sam Waterston leading The Public Theater's production of Shakespeare's royally mad monarch.

The result is a little bit how the British see us: bombastic.

From the inadvertently loud sets to the noisy costumes, from the extended fight scenes to the staccato crash of excessive thunder, this is a "Lear" that refuses to go quietly. And that's a pity because its best moments are the quiet ones.

The Lear baton was laid down in May by Derek Jacobi and the Donmar Warehouse's brilliant production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It was taken up over the summer by the Royal Shakespeare Company, with Greg Hicks in the title role. Now it's the turn of the "Law and Order" veteran and Waterston's interpretation, which opened Monday, is the most heartbreaking when Lear both recognizes his madness and yet can do nothing about it.

"O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Keep me in temper," Waterston's too-proud king laments, the actor's wild, piercing eyes darting beneath his bushy black eyebrows.

Waterston, who begins the play fussy and pedantic with his hair slicked back, ends it in soiled long johns and matted hair. He is a worthy Lear, delivering a brittle king who has become impossibly fractured.

But too often the production gets lost in its own disorder and distracts from memorable performances by Bill Irwin as a complex Fool; Arian Moayed, who throws himself into Edgar with stunning bravery; Michael McKean, who is wonderfully understated as Gloucester; and Seth Gilliam, a sexy and wicked Edmund.

Good luck enjoying their subtlety with all the crashing about. Miriam Buether's reliance in the first act on a heavy curtain made up of thick metal chains is sleek and pretty but soon makes a noisy nuisance of itself.

Actors have to pull apart strands of the curtain to enter or exit the stage, leaving a mini-metal tidal wave in their wake. During one performance, a wooden stool got caught under the curtain and the subsequent banging almost drowned out the dialogue.

Then there are costumes by Gabriel Berry that rely heavily on leather dusters, fingerless gloves, puffy down jackets, fabrics that would probably make better curtains and boots that look like they were stolen from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." The actors look as if they're former Soviet Army soldiers who shop at L.L. Bean.

And, to top it all off, Lear's head might not be the only one hurting by the end. Darron L. West (sound design) and Christopher Akerlind (lighting) apparently believe that if they keep the thunder crashing and the walls lighting up as if we were a Berlin disco circa 1987, the audience will understand that there's a storm raging. Thanks, but we got it the first dozen times. This is a "Lear" where noise-canceling headphones should be handed out with the Playbill.

James Macdonald, who directs, has lost the thread, but perhaps that's the point of a play that follows a king losing his grip on reality. It's a visual and audible assault, one that is based in no specific time and therefore has no anchor. It's a production where swords share the stage with flashlights and where hay is sprinkled around by actors for no apparent purpose.

Irwin is perfectly cast as a Shakespearean clown, a role where both his intellect and physical comedy skills are put to the test. He wears a brilliant bright yellow frock and big clown shoes, plays a ukulele and plays with his lines, distorting and stretching them as he bobs and weaves.

McKean, who remains stoic despite being blinded, delivers some of the plays best lines — "As flies to wanton boys, are we to th'gods" — with a beautiful subtleness. Moayed, in just his underwear when Edgar turns into mad Tom, shrieks and jerks and throws himself across the stage, conveying huge depths of sorrow and insanity.

Other notable performances are turned in by John Douglas Thompson, who plays Kent as if he were a baddie in "Die Hard." Wearing a wool cap, a leather jacket and what looks like a pair of Dockers, his Kent is quick to rage and flies across the stage, a muscular fury looking for a sword fight.

The two nasty sisters — Kristin Connolly as Cordelia and Kelli O'Hara as Regan — deliver fine performances that quietly unspool their treachery; Connolly's Cordelia is sweet and emotional and stunningly beautiful. Frank Wood plays a solid Cornwall and Richard Topol goes from wallflower to take-charge lord as Albany.

Waterston, a veteran Shakespearean actor, has said he long wanted to slip into Lear's cloaks and he has done us Yankees proud. It's a pity that so much that is out of his control has undermined that debut.

___

Online:

http://http://www.publictheater.org