“King Lear” is the Everest of plays: It’s big, it’s daunting and a lot of people try to climb it. Frank Langella just did it in January, John Lithgow tackles the role this summer and the Shakespeare’s Globe company’s version is due in September.
For spring, we have this Theatre for a New Audience production which, unfortunately, is stuck at base camp — no lofty heights for this dull, pedestrian effort.
If you’re going to put on “Lear” at this point, you should either mess with it or go the traditional route, but brilliantly. Director Arin Arbus chose the latter, minus the brilliance.
Britain’s Michael Pennington hits all the marks as Lear, even if he won’t rock your world. His king is at first imperious and domineering as he tests his three daughters’ love. Shunned by the two who once sucked up to him, he remains defiant when he gets caught in a literal storm of the soul, cowed but not broken.
This bit comes later, when the fallen monarch descends into madness. As Lear 2.0, Pennington is a doddering old man, and recovers his lion’s roar only when his devoted daughter, Cordelia, dies. Even so, he’s all technique and little gut emotion.
The rest of the cast wandering about Riccardo Hernandez’s spare set hardly seem to understand what they’re saying, let alone feel it.
Lilly Englert (Cordelia) and Jake Horowitz (the Fool) — the good guys — are woefully out of their depth, while Bianca Amato’s Regan looks like a graduate from the Joan Collins Academy of Dramatic Arts and Rachel Pickup’s Goneril constantly quivers with petulant rage. Never do we believe that these last two are devoured by ambition and actually dangerous.
This seems a harsh assessment, but it’s hard not to be annoyed by this show’s lack of conviction and vision. Why bother with yet another “Lear” when you have so little to say about it?