Review - King Lear

If Hamlet is the reward an actor gets for showing great promise in his youth, King Lear is the thank you he receives in the latter years of a distinguished career. At age 35, Sam Waterston's Hamlet became one of the iconic performances to come out of the New York Shakespeare Festival. Now, at 71, The Public Theater's gift for his decades of admirable stage work is the opportunity to essay the maddening royal whose rages against a perceived betrayal by the mosT Loving of his three daughters sets in motion the bloody collapse of a monarchy. Unfortunately, the gift has not been wrapped very attractively.

While director James MacDonald has surrounded Waterston with company full of fine and accomplished colleagues, there seems to be little spine to this unfocused production that gives the appearance of actors fending for themselves in a three-and-a-half hour evening that has little dramatic build and barely any emotional punch.

The first hint that something might be amiss is when Macdonald gives his star the same entrance Groucho Marx had in Duck Soup; Lear's subjects frozen in reverence, expecting the king to arrive from upstage center, only to have him dodder on from a side entrance. It's a cute, familiar chuckle, but where is it going?

What makes Lear a tragedy is the witnessing of a powerful leader succumbing to the various deteriorations of time and discovering too late the cost of his own vanity. But even in his initial scene Waterston's eccentric collection of facial expressions and jerky movements give the impression that the king's mental state has already severely declined. In announcing his stepping down from the throne, he has offered his three daughters, Goneril (Enid Graham), Regan (Kelli O'Hara - no, she doesn't sing) and Cordelia (Kristen Connolly) a chance to win the choicest divisions of land by effusively proclaiming the extent of their love for their father. The two eldest lay it on thick, but when Cordelia answers with unadorned simplicity, Lear's disbelieving anger is expressed through uncontrollable roars of disapproval. It's all too much, too soon and Waterston appears misguided and without depth until the lovingly played final moments.

While O'Hara's firm and unappreciative Regan and Graham's commanding Goneril come off fine, Connolly's earnestness is a bit bland, though the director does her no favors by having her speak her first lines, which are asides, melodramatically facing full-out front to the audience.

The outstanding classical actor John Douglas Thompson is a noble presence as the loyal Kent and Michael McKean has an appealing everyman quality as Gloucester, which should make his fate at least a bit disturbing, but the second half's bloodletting provides little excitement in this slow production. Other notable names in the company don't fare as well, though the ineffectualness of Bill Irwin's Fool could be blamed on the decision to make him a sneering sort of fellow whose favorite form of jest is to play with his enunciation of words until what he's saying lacks any form of coherency.

Costume designer Gabriel Berry dresses Irwin in a bright, creamy yellow number that sticks out oddly next to the dark and earthy tones of the rest of the production, including set designer Miriam Buether's chain metal curtains.

A thoughtful and understated actor, Sam Waterston absolutely has a hell of a take on Lear in him. This production, sadly, does not draw it out.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Sam Waterston, John Douglas Thompson, Bill Irwin and Enid Graham; Bottom: Michael McKean and Sam Waterston.

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