King Lear
Reviewed by Taylor Kass
The Harold Clurman Laboratory Theater Company
Through August 3
RECOMMENDED
“Who is it that can tell me who I am?” Lear rages, weeps, and goes mad while trying to find an answer. Harold Clurman Laboratory Theater Company finds clarity in their production of King Lear, one of William Shakespeare’s most iconic tragedies about one of literature’s most messed-up families.
The aging King Lear is dividing up his kingdom between his three daughters, two of whom take this opportunity to wax poetic about their undying love for him. The youngest and most genuine, Cordelia, refuses to play the game and is speedily disinherited. However, Lear soon realizes that his two sweet-talking daughters, Reagan and Goneril, are itching to seize his power for themselves. If that’s not enough family drama, Edmund, the bastard son of the Duke of Gloucester, is scheming to get his father and his legitimate brother Edgar out of the way. Just like The Brady Bunch, right?
Director Nike Doukas’s clean and geometric production creates order out of this chaos. While her straightforward approach might have missed the opportunity to emphasize the play’s more mystical elements, her stripped-back style lends focus to every acting choice of the technically-adept ensemble.
H. Richard Greene’s Lear is blustery and temperamental, as the script demands, but he retains an inner strength and dignity to the last. His booming voice gives him the gravity of a great king, but it is his gentle moments of tenderness with trusted aide Gloucester and beloved daughter Cordelia that conjure a tear or two. In an equally nuanced performance, Kyle Hester imbues Edgar, a nobleman betrayed by his father and brother, with sensitivity and a chameleonic ability to shapeshift into new disguises.
The black box space at the Art of Acting Studio has been transformed into a tennis-court seating configuration bordering a raked, carpeted stage. Like the staging, the scenic design by Johnny Patrick Yoder is bare bones — the only set piece is a throne carved into an imposingly large but nonetheless dead tree. In addition to its more functional uses, Yoder’s spindly, dry, grey tree is an apt metaphor for Lear himself — although his life is seeping away, his authority still looms over all.
It’s heartening to see a production of Shakespeare that puts the language front and center, that has faith in the story. The simplicity of staging, design and acting makes us tune into every word, so that the themes of the play become more palpable. The repetition of “nothing,” “naught,” “sight,” and “eyes” are key to the fundamental psychological struggles at the core of this drama — the fear of departing this life without leaving anything or anyone behind, and, perhaps worse, of moving through this world blind to the truth. The Harold Clurman Theatre Laboratory Company plays King Lear with a refreshing lucidity that makes the play’s existential crisis all the more impactful.
Harold Clurman Laboratory Theater at The Art of Acting Studio, 1027 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; through Aug. 3. https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe.c/10432609/. Running time: approximately two hours and 30 minutes with a 10-minute intermission.
