Kevin Kline Brings Core to Life as Lear

With his white beard and mane, Kevin Kline was a proud and stately lion, prowling around the intimately sized stage of the Public Theater. With a voice low and serious and a reserved smile, Kline, as the title role in the theater's production of King Lear, embodied the stature and vanity of a king, quite liberally employing the royal "we." Ultimately, as anyone familiar with the story of one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies knows, this vanity is his downfall.

With an all-star cast and a gorgeous set, and under the masterful direction of James Lapine, all three hours of this production of King Lear shine.

King Lear is the story of the eponymous king who, in his old age, decides to divide his land among his three daughters and maintain only the most peripheral powers as ruler, dividing his retirement and the remainder of his days among the three estates. The plan itself is not a bad one, but Lear forces each daughter-Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia-to prove their love to him in order to obtain their respective pieces of property. Goneril and Regan, in this production played by Angela Pierce and Laura Odeh, respectively, do their best, praising their father in honey-sweet tones. Odeh downplayed her character, acting shyly and deferring to her older sister. The dynamic between the two becomes quite interesting toward the end of the play, when Goneril and Regan compete fiercely for the affections of the villain Edmund.

Cordelia, played by Kristen Bush, is the youngest daughter and her father's favorite. She speaks last, and Lear has saved the best and largest piece of land on the map for her. However, Cordelia sees through the greedy treachery of her sisters and tells her father, "I love you according to my bond, no more, and no less." This so enrages Lear that he banishes the young princess. This vain action, along with the unrelenting greed of the older two sisters, their husbands, and the plotting Edmund, lead to the downfall of the king. In this performance, he literally writhes on the sand-covered stage, invoking an even more wretched version of the shipwrecked victims another Shakespearean play, The Tempest.

King Lear is a success because of the set and a few strong performances. The stage simultaneously sits below the audience and rises above it. It is sunken into the floor and surrounded by seating on three sides, and the rising scaffolding, in its skeletal form, reflects the baseness of evil in human nature.

Kline, a rare breed of movie star who never abandoned the stage, has a tremendous amount of experience with Shakespeare, and he did more than justice with the title role. His Lear is proud to a fault, staying outside on the beach in a dramatically staged storm in a scene that recalls the climax of Woody Allen's 1979 drama, Interiors. Kline has applied much of the craft of film-acting to the intimate stage at the Public Theater-the smallest movement of his eyes betrays the thought process of his character and can be seen even from the back row.

The other strong performance is by Larry Bryggman as the Earl of Gloucester. Like Lear, he is betrayed by his own child and rescued, unknowingly, by another. Gloucester's hopelessness and, ultimately, his humility are expertly portrayed, and the audience feels real compassion as he is forced to feel his way through the world as a blind man.

While this production of King Lear succeeds in many respects, it fails in others. With a bizarre range of costumes, the time period is never clearly set. Some of the costumes are conspicuously modern, such as a jersey wrap dress worn by Regan-she is careful not to get blood on it-while others seem more Victorian, like the hunting ensemble donned by Lear. In addition, Bush gives a particularly weak performance as Cordelia, though she, thankfully, made few appearances after her banishment. Her sobbing is pitifully fake, and she plays the role too dryly to elicit any kind of feelings from the audience.

Though it is three hours long, this production of King Lear is easy to follow and would be a good introduction to the Bard for interested parties. The acting of a few in the ensemble really shines, and the staging is well-executed (pun intended).