#1
Posted: 2/17/07 at 12:07am
I've just returned from what's being touted as the theatrical event of the season--of a lifetime, if Oskar Eustis is to be believed--and found it to be, well, completely underwhelming in every way. I've seen a lot of bad Shakespeare in my time, and I while I wouldn't call James Lapine's current production "bad," I would definitely say it has squandered a lot of potential.
Kevin Kline is an able Shakespearean, but I couldn't help shaking the thought that he's completely miscast as Lear. His trademark naturalism is all wrong for the larger than life king, and half the time he seems to wander around the stage of the Anspacher aimlessly, reciting his lines as if he were reading a telephone book. And this is before his descent into madness, which came off totally unbelievable. It pains me to write that Kline is lackluster, but he really, really is here.
He's surrounded by several other poor performers: Laura Odeh is laughable as the always laughing Regan, while Brian Avers didn't seem to register a single human emotion. Philip Goodwin plays The Fool as if he'd just had a small stroke before walking onstage. Worst of all, though, is Logan Marshall-Green's Edmund; he's an actor with very few tricks, and often finds himself either over annunciating or just plain shouting.
There is some good, though: Kristen Bush is appropriately moving as Cordelia, and Angela Pierce presents Goneril as a proper stone cold bitch. Best of all, though, is Michael Cerveris' Kent; with this performance, he's announcing himself as a rising star of American Shakespearean interpretation.
Not that my comments matter, since the entire run is sold out and avant gardists will likely rave for Lapine's theatrics, but I sure as hell wasn't enthralled.
Kevin Kline is an able Shakespearean, but I couldn't help shaking the thought that he's completely miscast as Lear. His trademark naturalism is all wrong for the larger than life king, and half the time he seems to wander around the stage of the Anspacher aimlessly, reciting his lines as if he were reading a telephone book. And this is before his descent into madness, which came off totally unbelievable. It pains me to write that Kline is lackluster, but he really, really is here.
He's surrounded by several other poor performers: Laura Odeh is laughable as the always laughing Regan, while Brian Avers didn't seem to register a single human emotion. Philip Goodwin plays The Fool as if he'd just had a small stroke before walking onstage. Worst of all, though, is Logan Marshall-Green's Edmund; he's an actor with very few tricks, and often finds himself either over annunciating or just plain shouting.
There is some good, though: Kristen Bush is appropriately moving as Cordelia, and Angela Pierce presents Goneril as a proper stone cold bitch. Best of all, though, is Michael Cerveris' Kent; with this performance, he's announcing himself as a rising star of American Shakespearean interpretation.
Not that my comments matter, since the entire run is sold out and avant gardists will likely rave for Lapine's theatrics, but I sure as hell wasn't enthralled.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
