While King Lear (Kenneth Branagh, left) is about to transfer power to his daughters, Edmund (Dylan Corbett-Bader), Gloucester’s illegitimate son, mulls betraying his half-brother Edgar.
What does it take to turn an extraordinary Shakespearean tragedy into an extraordinary production? The first step is vision. King Lear, with Kenneth Branagh in the title role, reflects the artistic vision and collaborative muscle of a directing triumvirate—Branagh, Lucy Skillbeck, and Rob Ashford. They have reduced the Bard’s three-hour-plus saga to two hours with no intermission and cast current and former Royal Academy of Dramatic Art students to bring new energy to a complex story. This series of theatrical risks yields cohesive and riveting theater.
Regan (Saffron Coomber) kneeling, vies with her sister Goneril (Deborah Alli) for the hand of Edmund (Corbett-Bader, left). Photographs by Marc J. Franklin.
In parallel but intertwined scenarios set in pre-Christian Britain, Lear (Branagh) and the Duke of Gloucester (Joseph Kloska) are betrayed by their covetous children. As a flawed king and nobleman, respectively, their obliviousness to the loyalty and love of Lear’s daughter Cordelia (Jessica Revell) and Gloucester’s son Edgar (Doug Colling) portends disaster for both fathers. Lear demands statements of fealty from his three children. The older ones, Goneril (Deborah Alli) and Regan (Saffron Coomber), outmaneuver the modest, noble Cordelia, who offers understated protestations of filial love. Their fawning over their father earns Cordelia banishment. Once Goneril and Regan receive their portion of his kingdom, they chip away at Lear’s self-esteem and power.
Gloucester’s undoing results from his illegitimate son Edmund’s (Dylan Corbett-Bader) intricate plot to frame his brother Edgar, Gloucester’s legitimate heir. Corbett-Bader’s compelling villainy as Edmund has him shift from bemoaning his bastard status to convincing Gloucester that Edgar is treasonous. Later, he alternately manipulates Goneril and Regan so that each believes that he will marry and rule England with her.
The Duke of Kent, here transformed into a woman (Eleanor de Rohan) banished by Lear for defending Cordelia, but a compassionate supporter of him, reappears in heavy disguise. Similarly, Revell’s Cordelia is transformed from one submissive to Lear’s chastisement and banishment to a warrior woman who leads the French rescue of Lear to prevent her sisters and Edmund from seizing the throne.
Lear (Branagh, left) and the blinded Gloucester (Joseph Kloska) comfort each other about their losses.
Revell’s Fool, whose dialogue is largely delivered via song and strings, is brilliantly performed. Revell is a skilled musician as well. The Fool accompanies Lear in his travels, and in some of his most jocular moments, the former’s music and lyrics resonate profoundly. “... ever since thou madest thy daughters thy uncle / Then they for sudden joy did weep / And I for sorrow sung / That such a King should play Bo-Peep / And go the fools among.”
Branagh excels in timing occasional infusions of humor into Lear’s otherwise tragic life. One of Branagh’s strongest moments is the storm scene, where Lear, half-dressed, and imagining himself impervious to danger, is ushered into a “hovel”—an absurd predicament for a king and simultaneously both tragic and comic.
This contrasts with Branagh’s earlier, more vigorous Lear: he runs offstage, shouting, and into the far reaches of the room—this is not what one would expect of “aged” man, nor are his retorts to his daughter Goneril, who aims to reduce his escort of knights. In anger, he says to Goneril, “Ingratitude, thou marble-headed fiend.”
Lear’s recognition of his daughters’ betrayal is a shock to his psyche and body. Branagh’s remorseful Lear indicates impending madness when he strikes his head and says, “Oh Lear, Lear, Lear, beat at this gate, that let thy folly in, And thy dear judgment out!”
Nina Dunn’s projections, Jon Bausor’s stark black set and primitive fur costumes, as well as Paul Keogan’s lighting, are particularly striking. They accentuate the dark, almost primordial world in which Lear’s, Gloucester’s, and their families’ lives morph into chaos. The celestial orb, which resembles the human eye, contains a black pupil within the dark, centered iris and a milky galaxy of moving bodies that portend disaster.
Ben and Max Ringham’s sound design augments the chilling eeriness that foreshadows of an age of “darkness” and brutality, one in which the Duke of Cornwall, Regan’s husband, callously gouges out Gloucester’s eyes. The goriness of the latter’s bloodied shirt is matched by the final scene’s pileup of cadavers. Among them are Cordelia, whom Lear gently removes from his shoulder and sets down, only to die by her side.
Bret Yount’s tight fight direction of the battle between Cordelia’s French forces and Edmund’s men is spellbinding. It amplifies the tragedy of protagonists Lear and Cordelia, and pinpoints dying Edmund’s ceding of power to Edgar as justice served. A final word of praise is due to Branagh and even more so, to the cohort of current RADA students and past graduates, who breathe life into a saga of death and misplaced love.
King Lear runs at The Shed (545 W. 30th St.) through Dec. 15. Evening performances are Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7 p.m.; Matinees are at 1 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. For more information, or to purchase tickets, call the box office at (646) 455-3494 or visit info@theshed.org.
Playwright: William Shakespeare
Direction & adaptation: Kenneth Branagh, Rob Ashford, Lucy Skillbeck
Set & Costume Designer: Jon Bausor
Lighting Design: Paul Keogan
Projection Designer: Nina Dunn
Sound Designers & Composers: Ben and Max Ringham
