A King's Madness

DESPITE several glaring faults, Theater Works' King Lear succeeds. The acting is strong, the pace appropriate, and the technical effects tasteful for the majority of the three hour production.

King Lear recounts the title figure's rejection of his youngest daughter, Cordelia, and betrayal by his other two daughters, Goneril and Regan. An interrelated sub-plot tells how the bastard Edmund discredits his legitimate brother Edgar and claims the lands of their father, Duke of Gloucester. Simple stories, but Shelley called this play, "the most perfect specimen of dramatic poetry existing in the world."

The story itself inevitably dominates any production of King Lear, and the Theater Works performance succeeds best where it is most restrained, allowing the actors to give "unaccommodated" life to the text. Tim McDonough does admirably with the difficult title role he is particularly fine when mad. He never breaks character or lapses into monotony during his longer speeches. He does, however, raise his voice too often--blunting the effect of some of the later scenes-- and occasionally speaks too quickly to be easily understood.

Brian Smiar, as Gloucester the other betrayed father, has no specific fallings, but lacks the air of nobility which should add extra bitterness to his fall. The same deficiency appears in Arthur Strimling's Kent; Strimling plays a servant, rather than a nobleman playing a servant. That complexity is crucial to the role of Kent, since in a class-conscious Elizabethan context, Kent's willingness to humble himself gives the most extreme proof of his devotion to Lear.

Among the evil characters, the bastard Edmund (Christopher McCann) most convincingly reveals and revels in malice. As Goneril, Kirsten Girous, gives the only unsatisfactory performance in the cast. (It is necessary not to have one's hand covering one's face at least half the time one is on stage, in order for the gesture to have a dramatic impact.)

THE ASPECT of King Lear which the Theater Works production presents most clearly is Lear's struggle to distinguish between wisdom and folly, reality and insanity. Although that achievement belongs primarily to McDonough's Lear, it owes almost as much to the agility of Kevin Keragga's Fool. The Fool acts as Lear's gadfly, confronting him with harsh truths, but his actions and speech are so thoroughly inconsistent that neither Lear, nor the audience ever completely comprehends him. Keraga does a brilliant job of balancing flamboyance and melancholy, credibility and recklessness. His manner and movements, as well as his recitation of Shakespeare's rhymes, give every one of his scenes depth.

The technical aspects of the show are minimal, but almost all excellent. Stacy Eddy's tasteful set consists almost entirely of pillars--movable black posts and the upper-half of grey gothic columns hung from the ceiling -- and is complemented by Timothy Bird's exceptionally beautiful lighting. The only problem with the show's visual presentation is a sense that the director lost control of some of the more crowded scenes. The sound for the production -- designed by David Miller--is painfully poor and very obtrusive, culminating in factory whistles during Lear's final mourning over Cordelia.

It would be trite to belabor the virtues of Shakespeare's text. The Theater Works production is a remarkably unelaborated and essentially solid enactment of that classic.