Entertainment

Hear! Hear! for tragic ‘Lear’

“King Lear” is no picnic: The play’s world is one where “machinations, hollowness, treachery and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves,” as Lear’s confidant, the Earl of Gloucester, puts it. All of those are deployed with bleak gusto in David Farr’s grimly captivating production.

The third installment in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s season at the Park Avenue Armory, the show overcomes some weak spots to effectively summon a claustrophobic, paranoid tragedy.

The action is set in a derelict spare set that crumbles and collapses as the play progresses, bathed in the menacing glow of flickering, buzzing industrial lights.

Lear (Greg Hicks) first appears as a powerful ruler, imperiously lording it over his court in a fur-lined, floor-length coat. He’s the kind of guy who comes back from a hunt carrying a dead boar on his shoulders.

Lear’s downfall is precipitated by his own arrogance and by a pair of formidable foes: his tag-teaming older daughters, Goneril (Kelly Hunter) and Regan (Katy Stephens). The first constantly seethes with rage — you feel that if she were pricked, she’d bleed 100-proof bile. The second observes the proceedings with a knowing, vulpine smirk, and projects a malevolent sexuality.

Lear’s youngest daughter, Cordelia, isn’t conniving at all — her weak spot is forthrightness. Samantha Young plays her like England’s own Joan of Arc, bolstered by self-righteous moral rectitude.

Hicks’ Lear indulges in cruelty with abandon, and it’s a testament to the actor’s skill that we feel for the monarch when he turns into a doddering madman. When he does, he seems to physically shrink, and looks downright decrepit in filthy underwear.

Moments of fragile light break through the gloom, like flowers peeking through a sidewalk’s cracks: Sophie Russell’s Fool speaks with grave wisdom, while Charles Aitken’s pure Edgar goes from shunned to redeemed, almost Christ-like.

Still, there are problems.

Chief among them is Tunji Kasim’s ineffectual turn in the key role of Gloucester’s bastard son, Edmund. You just can’t believe this bland fellow is the evildoing character whose wicked scheming sets plots in motion.

Also weak are the needlessly distracting mix-and-match costumes — medieval lords with swords, WWI doughboys and nurses.

Despite all this, the show casts a murky spell. Some may feel that the director’s vision puts too much emphasis on full-on spitefulness, that it’s hard to care for this nasty Lear.

Perhaps — but you can’t tear your eyes away.

elisabeth.vincentelli

@nypost.com