No need to bother with that revival of “King Lear” arriving in April at BAM. Why sit through the entirety of Shakespeare’s classic when you can get pretty much the same story in less than 75 minutes? As the title of Susanna Hamnett’s show, being presented by the New Victory Theater, suggests, it’s “Nearly Lear.”
“There’s this guy who got there first,” admits the performer early on. But this adaptation by Hamnett and director Edith Tankus distills the tragic tale of the prideful king and his three daughters in an entertaining and accessible fashion that serves as a handy introduction to the play for younger theatergoers.
Telling the story from the standpoint of the Fool, Hamnett enacts most of the characters, as well as a new one, Osmond, the King’s servant, who seduces both Regan and Goneril to achieve his own nefarious ends.
The piece runs through the play’s major plot points in breakneck fashion, with the performer taking care to include us in the action. She hands out tissues during one particularly emotional moment and, during the storm scene, wanders through the auditorium spraying audience members with water.
The witty adaptation makes particularly clever use of music, beginning with a recording of “Stormy Weather” to set the mood. Later, the ungrateful Regan sings “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” and the evil Osmond is introduced to the strains of “Bad to the Bone.”
Mixing Shakespeare’s language with her own irreverent interpolations, Hamnett delivers a highly entertaining turn that inevitably underplays the work’s tragic elements in favor of broad clowning. The results aren’t exactly faithful to the original, but hopefully it will whet youngsters’ appetites for the real thing.