KING LEAR Previews — Page 3

Matt Rogers said: "RippedMan said: "2 hours without a break?! Have you never seen a movie. "

Have you never noticed how you can leave your seat at a movie and return without causing much disruption? Try leaving a center section of. a Broadway show for a pee mergency. Not so easy.



"

How often do fully grown adults have "pee mergencies"? Go to the bathroom before the show starts and don't excessively drink during. Simple as that.

LarryD2 said: "Matt Rogers said: "RippedMan said: "2 hours without a break?! Have you never seen a movie. "

Have you never noticed how you can leave your seat at a movie and return without causing much disruption? Try leaving a center section of. a Broadway show for a pee mergency. Not so easy.



"

How often do fully grown adults have "pee mergencies"? Go to the bathroom before the show starts and don't excessively drink during. Simple as that.

"

If you're taking a prescribed diuretic for blood pressure or some other condition, it's not quite that simple.

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carolinaguy said: "If you're taking a prescribed diuretic for blood pressure or some other condition, it's not quite that simple."



Well I'm sorry then, but with all due respect you have 2 choices --- either stay home and skip this particular show, or buy a box of Extra Strength Depends.

I went Saturday night. I was super excited going into it and unfortunately left feeling a bit let down. That said it was super early previews so hopefully things pick up over the next few weeks!

The good: A+ acting from Jackson, Houdyshell, Pedro Pascal and Ruth Wilson- the latter in particular doing amazing work as Cordelia/The Fool.

I personally enjoyed the Philip Glass live orchestrations and did not find them distracting.

Michael Arden as Cornwall's aide and his signing for and to Russel Harvard. It was a different choice but it worked for me!

What needs work: The costumes! Lear's first costume was an ill-fitting suit that left Jackson looking a bit like Charlie Chaplin and as such kinda killed some of the power visually of seeing her onstage as the King; Elizabeth Marvel was dressed in what seemed to be a castoff from a Renaissance fair, didn't really fit with the rest of the costuming on stage (though I'd be hard pressed to say what exactly it was the designer was going for). During the final scenes Cordelia and her crew were dressed in stereotypical "guerilla" outfits (she in head to toe black, the men in camo)- I get what they were going for but again it just didn't really gel with what other people were wearing.

The fight choreography. The final showdown between Edmund and Edgar was so poorly choreographed that people around me were quietly giggling- definitely no tension or excitement there.

I don't want get too critical because it's still such early days, but my overall impression was that very fine actors were kind of left adrift by the direction an some questionable design choices. My best friend loves King Lear and knows it very well and during intermission he leaned over to me and whispered "Honestly... I'm not really sure what's going on up here!"

GeorgeandDot said: "I don't think directors are working their play around the audience's bladders. I think that's the least of their worries."

Yeah because 3 hours and 45 minutes with only one intermission sounds like a really pleasurable audience experience.

The king is mad, and we are bored.

Wow, I was so excited for this production, and what a let down.

Sam Gold has truly managed to suck any tension, sakes, or humor that are all to be found in Lear, and has replaced them all with basic stage pictures and a "score" by Philip Glass.

While Lear is the title character, there are still many other characters in Lear that play very important parts. Everything about their introductions are so rushed that we have absolutely no reason to care about them. Pedro Pascal truly whispered his opening soliloquy, thus none of the actual plot of what he is doing for the rest of the play was set up with any sort meaningful way. And the other supporting actors don't make out any better.
I've seen other people commenting on the set being a unit set, which shouldn't be a problem, and somehow....
I didn't think it was possible, but Sam Gold has managed to make a unit set cumbersome. Everything was basically blocked in straight lines, and it swallowed the voices of the actors.
The costumes are just nonsense.
And as we neared the end, as the story is supposed to ramp up, the pacing, blocking, music, and storytelling all SLOW dooooooooown to crawl.

Howl. Howl. Howl.

It's a shame this is the production of Lear with Glenda Jackson we got.

I don't want to jump to conclusions, but if this doesn't find its footing and gets poor reviews, what's winning Best Revival?? The only two we haven't seen yet are All My Sons and Burn This; this season has had some good revivals but not great revivals. I always had this penciled in for Best Revival because Jackson + Gold + Rudin seemed unbeatable.

All My Sons
The Boys in the Band
Burn This
King Lear
Torch Song
True West
The Waverly Gallery

These reports are truly terrible. They have about a month of previews right? Maybe they can turn this into something bearable by then.

This was high up on my anticipated 2019 productions, but these early reports have let all the air out my balloon. I actually took it off my wish list just now. It was very unlikely I’d make it back to NYC before it closes anyway, but based on the unanimous early reports, this sounds unfixable even if they do have a month to do so. There’s other things I can do with my time and money when I’m in NYC, including seeing tons of other shows. I was really rooting for this production. I’ll just keep my glorious memories of Glenda in Three Tall Women.

As far as frontrunners for best revival, I’m hoping The Waverly Gallery takes the prize. It was simply one of the greatest things I’ve ever experienced. Ditto for Elaine May.

Well, Jane Cox’ lighting has a few very beautiful moments, but as for the rest, well it’s not great.

Jackson is commanding, but she gets lost in this mess of a production. Ruth Wilson has some nice moments as The Fool/Cordelia and John Douglas Thompson comes out unscathed, even if it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him not make an impression.

I know it’s early previews, but I did not care for Pedro Pascal (Edmund) or Sean Carvajal (Edgar) tonight at all, and Lear really falls apart without a strong Edmund moving the plot along and an Edgar that adds emotional weight.

Any fight scenes, death scenes or blinding scenes were poorly staged and so drawn out. The blinding was painfully dull (and not much blood); Edgar and Edmund fought slower than molasses in a pit of tar.

But I don’t want to pick on the actors. One man is to blame for this and that is Sam Gold. As they sing in The Producers, “What he did to Shakespeare, Booth did to Lincoln!” King Lear is a tragedy, but the tragedy is not supposed to be the production taking place on the stage, unless this is some meta take on the tragedy of tragedy, in which case bravo!

The whole thing is lifeless and even when Jackson or Wilson attempt to light a spark and get a little kindling burning, Gold comes along with a bucket of water to put it out. I can’t for the life of me figure out why Jackson had to compete with a string quartet every time she spoke, but she did. The sets and costumes are hideous. It’s just a very unsatisfying night at the theater and that’s a shame.

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LesWickedly said: "Miles, think you got your point across yesterday when you said the same thing. "

Thanks for being so interested in what I say that you apparently read it twice. You know no one is forcing you to. Of Course, if you read my last three posts on this thread you’ll see I went from hopefully anticipation to disappointment (with the show staying on my list, but moving down it) to completely moving the show completely off my list plus answering SomethingPeculiar’s question. So there is subtlety there, but who knows, maybe that’s lost on you.

Updated On: 3/5/19 at 12:15 AM