Theater Review: Glenda Jackson stars in a tiresome King Lear on Broadway.

King Lear

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Sam Gold

Starring Glenda Jackson

Cort Theater, Manhattan

April 21, 2019

Seeing the octogenarian Glenda Jackson as King Lear was a little like my early days seeing opera, where I would go to see Luciano Pavarotti or Monserrat Caballé and be dazzled by their virtuosic performance, but be left a bit cold about the entire performance. In the old days that was usually because the resources and production surrounding the star were intentionally underpowered, perhaps to shine light on the star, not on some hotshot director. In contrast this overstuffed production of King Lear by a noted director was just the opposite. Sam Gold jammed so many ideas and innovations into the production that the great drama was enervated, and became a high tech video game where we waited for the next appearance by Glenda, er, Lear to see what she would do next.

My prior experience with director Sam Gold was in the excellent A Doll’s House Part 2, where he created a straightforward production that focused on forward motion and showcasing actor interactions. So I was surprised to see such a gimmicky King Lear from him here. Innovation abounded. Lear’s daughter Cordelia is banished early in the play, but is kept onstage here by having the same actress portray the fool. This created a few issues when the fool referred to Cordelia, but worked just fine (n.b. my dramaturge friend tells me that it was common for Cordelia/Fool to be played by the same actor in Shakespeare's day, even though the playwright did not explicitly create a double identity). This choice echoed the role of Kent, another banished character who secretly returns  masquerading as a commoner so he could stay at Lear’s side as the king wandered in the wilderness. Other innovations seemed less helpful. Cordelia’s hanging has her drop on a long noose from the high stage ceiling; Edgar speaks Spanish briefly, mimicking a fleeing immigrant trying to evade capture; Goneril offers a taste of her gynecologic secretions to her lover Edmund. Several gimmicks reflected director Gold’s efforts to emphasize the play’s theme of lack of communication or lack of comprehension (e.g. the central issue of Lear misinterpreting Cordelia as disloyal). For example, the Duke of Cornwall was in Scottish kilt, deaf, with his steward signing to him; the steward had a speech impediment. So under Gold's direction a deaf and a mute character joined the viciously blinded Gloucester (Shakespeare actually wrote that disability into the play) to cook up a smorgasbord of sensory deprivations. Such metaphors were unnecessarily obvious. Despite all this directorial intervention, the basic set was plain, and not very evocative…textured gold metal plates with minimal furniture, no lightning or rain for the storm. The great Philip Glass contributed a fairly generic score played by an onstage quartet that moved around next to the actors throughout---why? Many of Shakespeare’s lesser plays are much enlivened by innovative choices, even outrageous ones. But King Lear needs unencumbered room to breathe and deliver its timeless messages.

The actors were generally good, but overshadowed by Ms. Jackson. Perhaps best was Pedro Pascal as a nuanced Edmund, manipulating all the other characters to advance his career—a truly modern and central character in this performance.

Ms. Jackson was convincing in the title role, but chose a more angry than sympathy-inducing performance. I was startled by her virtuosity in Act 1, but as things went along, tired of the stagecraft and wished she were more focused on ensemble integration with the others in the cast. None of them particularly stood out. I never figured out Regan’s accent, which had some sort of undefinable regional lilt—again, why?  As Shakespeare said, “The play’s the thing”. Perhaps the director and producers will keep this more in mind the next time they trick up a timeless play whose complexities stand pretty well on their own.