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Review : King Lear
Falls resets "Lear" as powerful modern story
Taken from the September 20, 2006 issue of the Chicago Sun-Times
September 20, 2006
BY HEDY WEISS Theater Critic
Gargantuan in its scale and volcanic in its impact, Robert Falls' brilliantly conceived production of "King Lear" -- the keystone of his 20th anniversary season as artistic director of the Goodman Theatre -- is part grand opera and part Grand Guignol. Shot through with a mix of fierce poetry and volcanic vulgarity, it captures the essence of Shakespeare's world view, while at the same time homing in on a particularly horrific chapter in recent history.
Decades ago, Falls carried around a book called Shakespeare Our Contemporary, a work by the Polish director Jan Kott that argued in favor of finding a modern way into the Elizabethan writer's mindset. Kott's notion was often misconstrued as little more than a call for prop changes -- replacing parchment scrolls with cell phones, for example -- when in fact it was a call for finding equivalents of human nature and political action.
In his "Lear," Falls and his design team unquestionably tap into all the surface equivalents with uncanny accuracy. But he and his actors -- including that quicksilver master Stacy Keach -- also go the distance to the crucial next level, where emotion is all.
The historical scene animating this "King Lear" is the regime of someone very much like former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, who died earlier this year while on trial for war crimes. While Falls remains true to the specifics of Lear's story, he uses the stench of the Milosevic regime and the breakup of Yugoslavia -- a toxic blend of black-market French perfume, cigarette smoke, thuggish sweat and burning flesh -- to extraordinary effect. The tale of an aging medieval king with precious little self-knowledge and great volatility -- a man who pays a bitter price for rashly dividing up his kingdom based on the tributes of his three daughters -- immediately becomes the stuff of our time.
Aura of authenticity
As someone who observed the Milosevic era at close range in 1996 and '97, I can vouch for the aura of authenticity here. The opening scene alone nails the time and place: A grand hotel ballroom with kitschy gilded decor; women in whorish but expensive gowns; a giant portrait of "the man of the hour" (as seen in his prime), while Lear himself arrives in a pale blue suit that quickly suggests he is out of touch with his time. There is more: a rapper singing in Serbian; the guns and knives and alcohol; the Mafia overtones; the explosive tempers and paranoia. The whole fabric of corruption and excess becomes palpable, as does the sense of restored humanity when Lear becomes homeless.
The play's first half is largely domestic, as Lear disinherits his youngest, most honest daughter, Cordelia (Laura Odeh, tiny but forceful), and sets his own downfall in motion. He finds himself a stranger at the villa of one evil daughter, Goneril (Kim Martin-Cotten as the redheaded serpent with a Kathleen Turner growl) -- a woman whose relationship with her intellectual, continually cuckolded husband, Albany (Kevin Gudahl), might have been imagined by Edward Albee. The second twisted daughter, Regan (Kate Arrington, all platinum-haired, sadistic and married to the mob), drinks heavily, lives behind a high-security fence and, along with Goneril, lusts after Edmund (the perfectly insidious Jonno Roberts), bastard son of her father's good friend, Gloucester (Edward Gero). In a particularly insightful touch, Lear's retinue is comprised not of soldiers but of riot-helmeted police, a scene straight from the Belgrade streets.
The play's second half is more about public carnage, with all the domestic brutality spiraling out of control and spilling over onto gruesome battlefields where dozens of anonymous, plastic-wrapped corpses are unceremoniously hurled into a mass grave, and status symbol Mercedes lie smashed and half-buried.
A physical grace
Of course, it is Lear's move toward self-knowledge and death that are crucial here. And Keach -- with his attention to the language, and his surprising physical grace -- embodies the role with deceptive effortlessness. Watch his little cardiac episodes, or the blistering storm scene, or the beautiful reconciliation with Cordelia. Catch the astonishing interplay between him and his Fool (a tour de force by Howard Witt, who plays the character as if he were a favored actor from Serbia's National Theatre). Or marvel at the gorgeous scene in which everything has fallen apart, and Lear and the Fool -- along with Kent (a wonderfully natural and resilient Steve Pickering) and Gloucester's good son, Edgar (fleet, eloquent Joaquin Torres) -- join hands in a high-spirited dance of death and madness.
The rumor is that Walt Spangler's dazzling sets for this "Lear" (lit by the wizardlike Michael Philippi) tip the scales at 18 tons. Sounds just about right -- Falls is never the minimalist -- but this is one time when the excess works, even if the price tag might easily match the cost of rebuilding a Sarajevo street.
Ana Kuzmanic's costumes -- from the garish furs, trendy shoes and form-fitting black T-shirts to the soccer jersey for Goneril's all-purpose assistant, Oswald (Dieterich Gray is ideal) -- might have been lifted off the racks in a particular little Belgrade mall I know. Perfect. Richard Woodbury's sound design is inspired at every turn -- from snatches of the Rolling Stones and a Bulgarian women's chorus to the rowdy rhythms of traditional Serbian music.
And don't forget Shakespeare in all this. "Lear" is a majestic piece of work, and seeing it within just a week of the formidable "Hamlet" now onstage at Chicago Shakespeare, you might find yourself wondering, yet again: Who was the genius behind the pen?
One warning: This "Lear" is not for the timid or impressionable. It contains extreme violence, graphic simulated sex and nudity. Remember the war in Bosnia? Enough said.
THEATER REVIEW
'KING LEAR'
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
When: Through Oct. 22
Where: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn
Tickets: $20-$75
Call: (312) 443-3800
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