KING LEAR
At the curtain, there was no standing ovation, no protracted applause. But, really, the worst that can be said of this production is that it’s mediocre. No one in the cast is embarrassingly bad, at least not by American standards, and when it comes to Shakespeare I rank us somewhere behind Canada. But King Lear, of all Shakespeare’s plays, seems most cruelly mocked by mediocrity.
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Otherwise, there’s not much to commend this production. Many of the production values are, unfortunately, commonplace. The cast, for example, all speak like they made a recent trip to ye olde Shakespearean voice coach. Where do they learn to speak from the back of the throat like that? Did they get that from James Earl Jones? Richard Burton? Dr. Who? Well, at least you can understand them this time. Kerry Fleming’s costumes, already mentioned, are sort of Victorian for no apparent reason, with occasional ridiculous touches. Such as Lear’s royal cape, cut whole from a bolt of flimsy purple imitation satin, looking like something from a children’s play. Or Goneril and Regan’s campaign jackets–just the thing for that slightly androgynous, Victorian, paramilitary, Trekkie look. And just for variety–when lighting designer Michael Rourke tires of pools of light amidst the darknes–she resorts to a largely green and pink palette, investing several scenes with the ambience of a Miami disco at closing time, which is as near to madness as this show gets.
