(Stacy Keach as Lear, Howard Witt as The Fool; photo Steve Mencher)
The king’s three daughters have a chance to claim their inheritance, as “King Lear” opens. He’s stepping down. To get their fair share of the kingdom, all they have to do is tell daddy how much they love him.
Goneril and Regan have been practicing. They love him madly, truly, deeply, and extravagantly. More than their own husbands, they tell him. More than life itself. But when young Cordelia, the third sister, is asked what she has to say to best her sisters, she can add no more than “nothing.”
“Nothing,” says the king, “will come of nothing.”
Shakespeare, in this melancholy guise, is an existentialist, a pessimist, a man for whom tragedy is not complete unless it’s accompanied by murder and madness. A man at home in the land of nothing.
Director Robert Falls knows this side of Shakespeare. The artistic director of Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and Tony-winning director of several of its triumphant transfers to Broadway, Falls has set “King Lear” in Eastern Europe, as an untethered state drifts into chaos, anarchy, and ethnic cleansing. He has found commonalities in the breakup of Lear’s kingdom and the bloodshed that ensued after Marshal Tito died in 1980 or the uncertainty after Romania’s Ceausescu was executed.
Count me among those who passionately hate Shakespeare that’s updated for the sake of variety or “engagement” with modern audiences. The conceits usually fall apart by scene two, when you wonder why these modern folks are spouting iambic pentameter. So why does this production work?
I’d say it’s because of the absolute conviction of the actors and production team. Their passion and commitment are bent to the common work of telling this spellbinding story. We all have fathers, of course. And for those of us with daughters, don’t we crave their love, their acceptance, their agreement to carry on our hopes and dreams in ways more ineffable than sons could?
Did I mention that I saw “King Lear” on Father’s Day? Robert Falls, perhaps having heard that I’d suggested running our “King Lear” story at AARP on Father’s Day grinned at me conspiratorially when he saw me, asked if I was having a good time, and assured me he was. “Father’s Day,” he muttered, eyes gleaming. Couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me or sharing a joke.
Yes, a good time was had by all. As Gloucester’s eyes are gouged out like so much troublesome jelly. As Lear slides into madness and hopelessness. As, one after another, the characters in the play are shot, stabbed, garroted, raped, and murdered.
So what’s good about it? What are we “enjoying?” First is craft. It’s quite a kick to see Stacy Keach stretching himself to explore every cranny of this aging monarch. He is by turns wily, furious, absent, volcanic, and always believable and human. It’s the performance of a lifetime for a man who has had a career that never moved in a straight line. MacBird, Hamlet, Macbeth, Mike Hammer, and the voice that launched a thousand documentaries. Here he seems at home on stage, after wowing Chicago in this role in 2006, and surviving a stroke last spring. He’s alive, and loving it.
The second great pleasure of this production is to be in the presence of what I might call a Chicago school of ensemble acting. I’ve been enjoying this tsunami of energy since my days in Chicago in the early 1970s, and most recently in the fabulous work of Mary Zimmerman. Chicago’s best directors and the actors they work with seem to operate at a fever pitch; they trust each other to be brave and unselfish, and turn themselves inside out in public.
Did I mention that Bob Falls is a madman and a genius? He knows that “Lear” – a play about love and pain, about seeing and nothing, about power and corruption – is expressed in every syllable of language on the page, and every gesture made by every person on stage. There is no wasted sound or motion in this “Lear.” It moves like a runaway freight train. The work he does in animating “Lear” is work all directors do. He just does it as well as anyone working today.
This particular train, by the way, is on the road to Hell, where we are deposited, spent and weary at the end of the evening.
Michael Kahn’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, presenting “Lear” in the nation’s capital through the end of July, has been warning Washington for months about this show. Expect nudity and extraordinary violence, they said. In fact, they were so concerned about possible offense to the unwary that the show comes literally with a warning sticker that it is for “Mature Audiences Only.” We’ll pray it finds them.
“I Feel Pretty.” Or “Siento Hermosa.” The brilliant and problematic stroke of genius in this new production of West Side Story, seen at Washington’s National Theater, is not only to have real Latinos playing most of the Sharks, but to have them sing and speak in Spanish, as well as English.
Appearing in the elegant 
Since the first of the year, I’ve seen three incredible women in concert in New York City: Barbara Cook, Judy Kuhn, and Joanna Newsom.
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For August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean” to work its magic, you’ve got to believe that the assortment of people onstage are a family. From the ageless matriarch Aunt Ester, who claims to be centuries old, to the others who protect her and help extend her influence into the community where she “washes souls” on Tuesdays… these men and women must create a believable and tightly knit world.
It’s in Act Two, when we finally realize that this show contains a powerful heart, that the production nearly redeems itself. It turns out that Aunt Ester’s secret ceremony of cleansing and renewal involves an exorcism of sorts. She conjures the history of slavery, from the first passage across the Atlantic to the last broken shackle. Aunt Ester’s magic is the ability to recall that black history, and use it to redeem souls, shooting them forward into the 20th Century and new possibilities for African American lives.
I didn’t get the second act of Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods” when I saw it on Broadway in 1987. The show wrapped everything up tightly at the Act I curtain. All the fairy tales colliding on stage arrived at a happy ending and there seemed nowhere left to go. I used to tell people that the show had a great first act, but not much of an Act II.
First, the jaw dropping new space for the D.C. area’s best theater company is another kind of fairy tale. (New Signature lobby, photo Scott Suchman) That’s the one where hard work and penury are rewarded, and creativity and pluck triumph. The theater began in 1989 as part of the Arlington, Virginia arts incubator program. The loyal audience, which got used to dodging traffic along the industrial strip where the theater lived in an old bumper plating factory, now numbers more than 4500 subscribers, and the operation has an annual budget of $4.5 million, which still seems absurdly low for what they accomplish.
More to the point, the new spaces (there are two theaters now, one seating 299, and a 99-seater for smaller shows) are still “black boxes.” That is, infinitely malleable for designers who can decide where the audience, the orchestra, and the action will go in response to each script. It’s clear that Robert Perdziola, who designed the set and costumes for “Woods,” was out to give the big space (called the MAX) a real workout. And you get a sense of exploration, of every trick being pulled out and tested for effect. (Set under construction, photo Scott Suchman)
As the Baker, Daniel Cooney is earnest, sympathetic, though he seems to take a few moments to settle into his quest. It’s not long before it’s our quest, too. The witch has challenged him and his wife to a cosmic fairy tale scavenger hunt, demanding they gather a token from all the other characters: it’s the thing our story’s protagonists are least likely to want to part with (Cinderella’s golden slipper, Rapunzel’s hair). But if he can win the game, the baker and his wife will be rewarded with a child. The Baker’s Wife (April Harr Blandin) is in many ways at the center of the story. Her quest is not only to gather the tokens, but to convince her husband that she’s an equal partner in the hunt, and in their lives. Finally, late in Act One, the couple sing “It Takes Two.” They’ve figured out that way beyond biology, it takes two to make and raise a child. (photo by Carol Pratt)
In a role played on Broadway by Bernadette Peters, Eleasha Gamble as the Witch makes the switch from crone to diva, and stirs the plots to keep them simmering. (Gamble and Erin Driscoll as Rapunzel, photo, Carol Pratt) When she realizes that not even a witch can have it all — magic and beauty, feelings and a fire-shooting staff — we sympathize almost despite ourselves. After all, aren’t we supposed to fear and hide from the evil witch character in these stories? Not in the world of Sondheim and Lapine, where personal responsibility and community trump evil.
In what universe are posts about musical theater on Broadway and gang activity in our neighborhood part of the same conversation? Well, not to be too fancy about it, but let’s start with graffiti like the drawing at left on some trees a few miles from our house.