King Lear (The Shed)

Tweet

Sir Kenneth Branagh’s second Shakespeare on the New York City stage is his London production of King Lear, co-directed with Ron Ashford and Lucy Skilbeck, now at the Shed for 50 performances. The cast is drawn from recent graduates of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. While the diction is impeccable as though this were a radio play, the directors have made several problematic choices that damage the effectiveness of this most devastating of Shakespeare’s tragedies.

Firstly, the play has been shortened to two hours without any intermissions, when most recent productions have been three and a half hours with one intermission. This makes all of the events seem to take place too soon, one on top of the other, so that the sense of a world turned upside down is never felt in the production’s rush to the end. There is little sense of turning “the wheel of fortune” spoken of several times in the play.

All the actors including the 63-year-old Branagh in the title role seem too young for their parts. While Lear describes himself as “a very foolish fond old man,” in fact, in this production he is a very vigorous and hearty leader, though capricious in his decisions. The supporting cast though excellent in their diction and authoritative in their roles seem lacking in technique to make the roles both interesting and their own. The low-key characterizations damage the play’s violence and viciousness.

The design elements can’t make up their mind if this is set in the past or in the future, just like the previous Metropolitan Opera’s Ring Cycle which was dubbed “Stonehenge Hilton.” Jon Bausor’s costumes suggest Ancient Briton (the real King Lear is believed to have lived around 600 AD) but at the same time look futuristic with bias cut hems on the gowns for the women. His set, a large circular platform with the universe, clouds and stars passing above, suggest the world after an apocalypse sometime in the future. The spare production uses no furniture or props besides spears for most of the actors.

Most damaging is that this solid but bland production has no point of view. What is the creators’ interpretation of the world of King Lear? We never find out what is supposed to make this production different from others. And if this staging was intended to have some relevance to our own time, this is never made clear.

The tragedy of King Lear is the story an ancient king of Briton who decides to retire and divide his kingdom among his three daughters, his oldest Goneril, married to the Duke of Albany; Regan, married to the Duke of Cornwall;and his youngest, the unmarried Cordelia, who has two suitors, the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France. Acting injudiciously, he asks them to tell him how much they love him before he gives each a third of his kingdom. He also expects to live with each of them alternately, one every three months.

Goneril and Regan insincerely flatter Lear which is what he wants; however, Cordelia who loves her father most refuses to play the game and announces that she loves him as a daughter should. Lear, furious, disinherits her at which point the Duke of Burgundy withdraws as a suitor, but the King of France finds her behavior that much more honorable and chooses her for his wife. Lear’s adviser, the Duke of Kent berates Lear for his foolish behavior and is banished for his trouble.

Goneril and Regan prove their vicious and greedy natures, rejecting their father who arrives at their castles with his retinue of 100 knights, driving him into the night in a storm with only his Fool and the disguised Kent as his companions. In a parallel story, often a Shakespearean technique, the Duke of Gloucester’s vicious bastard son Edgar plots to disgrace his legitimate brother Edmund in his father’s eyes and causes his brother to be disinherited. Edmund in disguise as mad Tom of Bedlam ends up on the same heath as Lear and his own father who by now is sightless. When Cordelia and the King of France bring an army to Briton to save Lear, nothing goes as expected and Goneril and Regan turn on each other in their lust for Edmund, now a general in their army. Atrocity after atrocity follows one after the other in a world now run by no rules. Eventually, the wheel of fortune turns and order is restored after a great many deaths of the main characters.

Branagh’s interpretation of Lear seems to be of an out-of-control ruler to whom all things are a joke. As his three daughters, Deborah Alli (Goneril) and Saffron Coomber (Regan) are black while Cordelia is played by Jessica Revell, a white actress, which seems to be the only point of view the play takes. Like the RSC/Sir Anthony Sher/Gregory Doran production seen in New York in 2019, this suggests that Lear’s two older daughters had one mother, and that Cordelia was from a second marriage. Of the three, only Alli as Goneril shows variety and nuance, while Coomber’s Regan seems only angry. As in Sam Gold’s production of King Lear with Glenda Jackson in the title role, Cordelia also plays Lear’s Fool but never here sounds like she is really telling her king off.

While Regan, her husband the Duke of Cornwall and Edmund prove to be depraved and opportunistic, here Coomber, Hughie O’Donnell and Doug Colling are too low key to shock us much. As the Dukes of Kent and Gloucester, Eleanor de Rohan (in a gender reversal) and Joseph Kloska, respectively, are too mild mannered to make much impression. As Goneril’s husband the Duke of Albany, Caleb Obediah, who ultimately proves to be one of the good guys, is somewhat more effective, but is offstage so much of the time that he doesn’t get to register much.

Most interesting are the sound design by Ben and Max Ringham, the lighting by Paul Keogan and the projection design by Nina Dunn with their thunder, lightning, cloud and star effects. This King Lear is a rather tame and flavorless production though the impressive diction means that the words come across as crystal clear.

King Lear (through December 15, 2024)

Presented by The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company (KBTC), The Shed and Fiery Angel

The Shed’s Griffin Theater, 545 W. 30^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.theshed.com

Running time: two hours without an intermission