Kevin Kline a magnificent Lear, strong and doomed
NEW YORK - Maps of kingdoms are, surely, drawn in sand. Before the Public Theater's thrilling production of King Lear actually begins, while we're still settling our coats and leafing through our programs, three little girls create onstage a colorful mandala - a Tibetan sand painting meant to be destroyed once finished as an emblem of the transitoriness of all human endeavor. This will become the map Lear uses to divide his kingdom, and thus director James Lapine gives us the perfect image of the doom to come.
NEW YORK - Maps of kingdoms are, surely, drawn in sand.
Before the Public Theater's thrilling production of King Lear actually begins, while we're still settling our coats and leafing through our programs, three little girls create onstage a colorful mandala - a Tibetan sand painting meant to be destroyed once finished as an emblem of the transitoriness of all human endeavor. This will become the map Lear uses to divide his kingdom, and thus director James Lapine gives us the perfect image of the doom to come.
Those three girls become, grown up, Lear's three daughters as Shakespeare's mightiest tragedy begins. The king (Kevin Kline in a magnificent performance) decides it's time to retire and demands declarations of love in exchange for his bequests. The elegant, chilly blond Goneril (Angela Pierce) makes a pretty speech, as does her sister Regan (Laura Odeh), a dark-haired giggling, vicious cutie.
Lear's favorite, the smooth-browed, sincere Cordelia (Kristen Bush, the production's weak link), refuses to play the game, saying her love for her father has always been obvious. Hurt and angry, easily misled, Lear cuts her out of his will and banishes her. After that first great mistake is made, the tragic events must follow.
Meanwhile, in a parallel plot, the Earl of Gloucester (the excellent Larry Bryggman) has two sons, legitimate Edgar (Brian Avers) and the bastard Edmund (Logan Marshall-Green). Edmund decides he will trick his father, destroy his brother, and inherit the title and land; he becomes the link joining the two plots. This sexy badboy - no Machiavellian manipulator but a ruthless opportunist who makes it up as he goes along - becomes the object of Goneril's and Regan's lust, intensifying their murderous rivalry.
The two family dramas play out with a combination of grandeur and naturalness under Lapine's splendid direction. Kline shades his profound and subtle portrayal of Lear by tiny increments, from the arrogant, demanding man who has "but slenderly known himself" - handsome, vigorous, with leonine white hair - to the "unaccommodated man" on the heath in the storm, "more sinned against than sinning," able, finally to show sympathy to his Fool (the very Beckettian Philip Goodwin).
The music, by Stephen Sondheim and Michael Starobin, provides both a lovely lullaby sung by the Fool and Kent to the sleeping Lear on the heath (lyrics provided by one of Shakespeare's sonnets) and some irritating chiming punctuating the action.
Costuming these medieval characters in modern dress (designed by Jess Goldstein) underlines the play's contemporary relevance, both politically - the overconfident, self-important destroyer of nations - and emotionally: the father reduced to impotent rage and terrible too-late self-knowledge, half senile in a wheelchair.
The big, famous scenes are superb: The storm is rendered through the simplest theatrical effects with terrific sound effects ("Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks"), while the bloody violence - tricky in a small theater with the audience close to the actors - always works. Edgar's and Edmund's protracted knife fight is both terrible and balletic, while the spectacular eye-gouging scene, in which Regan helps her husband blind Gloucester, gives us a horrified glimpse into her character - a woman shuddering, gasping, gulping, weeping, laughing with orgasmic pleasure.
The achingly beautiful last scene, when Lear carries in Cordelia's body, allows Kline to show us why an actor in his prime should play Lear; he is strong enough to carry her (and for us to believe he killed her murderer) and yet believably broken enough to die, stretched on "the rack of this tough world" too long.
Lapine concludes with a fine theatrical stroke, choosing to show rather than just tell us about the deaths of every major character, ending with a splendid final tableau of death and sadness.
King Lear
Written by William Shakespeare. Directed by James Lapine. Sets by Heidi Ettinger, costumes by Jess Goldstein, lighting by David Lander, music by Stephen Sondheim and Michael Starobin, and sound by Dan Moses Schreier and Phillip Peglow. Presented by the Public Theater.
Cast: Kevin Kline (King Lear), Brian Avers (Edgar), Larry Bryggman (Gloucester), Kristen Bush (Cordelia), Michael Cerveris (Kent), Philip Goodwin (Fool), Piter Marek (King of France), Laura Odeh (Regan), Daniel Pearce (Cornwall), Michael Rudko (Albany), Logan Marshall-Green (Edmund), Ryan McCarthy (Ensemble), Angela Pierce (Goneril), Timothy D. Stickney (Oswald), and Joaquin Torres (Duke of Burgundy).
Playing at: The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., New York. Through March 25. Tickets $60. Information: 212-967-7555 or www.publictheater.org
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