Frank Langella Is King Lear at BAM

We here at The Jade Sphinx are still reeling from the magnificent performance of Derek Jacobi (born 1938) as Lear at BAM nearly three years ago.  It remains, simply, the greatest Shakespearean turn we have ever witnessed.  Is Frank Langella (born 1938), one of the finest actors of his generation, up to the challenge?

Lear is one of the most provoking and ambiguous of Shakespeare’s plays.  Its place in his cosmology is deeply contentious – is the play one of the most bleak and despairing ever penned, or do the final reconciliations and admissions of frail humanity make it ultimately optimistic?  We have seen Lears howling into windstorms, mumbling quietly to themselves, and – sometimes, as in the case of Jacobi – opening their inner-selves to display the very workings of their souls.

The current production of King Lear is a mixed bag of delights.  As is often the case when a “Great Actor” tackles a major role, many of the supporting parts are stinted, and that is the case here.  Fortunately, the overall value of the production maintains a consistent interest.

We are first struck by the wonderful set by Robert Innes Hopkins, a blasted heath right out of a horror film.  Lit by torches, capable of suggesting a castle and a barren ruin, it strikes a wonderfully somber note (helped immeasurably by dramatic lighting by Peter Mumford).

Cavorting through this magnificent design is Langella.  Oddly enough this protean actor, so famous for the velvety richness of his voice, changes the timbre and pitch to something more like a growl.  Where Jacobi saw Lear as alternately a spoiled and abused child, Langella visualizes the King as both an old fool and an old bully.  It is an entirely valid approach, but his growling, shouting and raging in the first act strikes a single note, and his performance suffers from a lack of variety.

However, Langella improves exponentially in the second act.  His voice returns to its normal register.  His mad scene with Gloucester is delightfully played, and his reconciliation with Cordelia moving.  At her death, his reading of "Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all? O thou'lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never” is among the most moving I have ever seen.  Langella pauses between each “never,” looking into different parts of the theater, his voice softly echoing through the house.  It’s a wonderful moment, and one wishes there were more like it.

Director Angus Jackson creates a wonderfully theatrical experience, with many showy set-pieces.  The raging storm where Lear descends into madness is effective (though the staging nearly overwhelms Langella’s playing), and the suggested battle bits (lights flashing behind looming trees) is impressive.  

Sadly, Jackson falls far short of providing sufficient support for Langella. Denis Conway, as Glouscester, William Reay, as Burgundy, and Steven Pacey, as Kent, are all fine without setting the stage afire.  On the other hand, Catherine McCormack, as Goneril, and Isabella Laughland, as Cordelia, are simply wretched.  (In fact, Laughland is never more convincing than when she plays a corpse.)  As Albany, Chu Omambala delivers the most flat and uninteresting performance I have seen this season.

Lauren O’Neil is terrific as Regan, and Harry Melling quite wonderful as the Fool.  (Why does Shakespeare make this wonderful creation vanish from the latter part of the play?  One of the many mysteries of the play…)  As Cornwall, Tim Treloar is deliciously evil.

Better still are Max Bennett and Sebastian Armesto as half-brothers Edmund and Edgar, respectively, who lend wonderful support.  Armesto makes a particularly appealing Edgar, and straddles the difficult line of rejected son to feigned madman superbly.  Better still is Bennett.  King Lear often becomes Edmund’s play when cast correctly, and the handsome and athletic Bennett makes a meal of his role.  By turns suave, puckish, conniving, and amoral.  It is a star-making turn, and this Lear may signify the debut of a major, North American classical actor.  Mr. Bennett, more, please.

At the end, we were somewhat moved when the final effect should’ve been devastating.  This Lear is highly dramatic, but only intermittently moving.  It could have been so much more.

This production of Lear premiered in October 2013 at Chichester's Minerva Theatre and plays its New York engagement at BAM through Feb. 9 in the Harvey Theater.

King Lear Reigns Over BAM

It is rare that an evening of theater ends with the audience breathless, weeping or paralyzed by depth of emotion.  But such is the case at the BAM Harvey Theater, where Sir Derek Jacobi currently stars in the Donmar production of William Shakespeare’s King Lear, directed with passion and energy by Michael Grandage.

King Lear is often best enjoyed between the pages of a book rather than onstage simply because it is such a difficult play to mount sympathetically.  Is the text ultimately positive … or negative?  Is it a great tragedy that ends on a triumphant note? Or a view into a dark cosmos where humanity is little more than sport for the gods?

Difficult, too, is the characterization of Lear himself.  Too often he is played in a ponderous manner, as if he were plowing into an earth all too ready to consume him.  The success of King Lear ultimately rests on the performance of the title role.  Jacobi leads a mostly excellent cast, and provides one of the most vivid, human and sympathetic performances I have seen in a lifetime of theater going.

Jacobi’s Lear is surprisingly light on his feet – no aged titan crawling into his grave.  Instead, his Lear is more of a pettish child, full of offended sensibilities and flying into tantrums over wounded dignity.  When his Lear cries, “Where is my food?!” he seems more graybeard toddler than dignified patriarch.  This is a perfectly valid reading of the part; Lear is a victim not only of murderous relatives, but of his own childish behavior.  

Jacobi’s masterstroke is that his approach provides great opportunities for shades of characterization.  His two mad scenes are played counter-intuitively.  On the moors and pelted by the elements, Jacobi whispers to us rather than howls.  Later, met by the now blind Gloucester (the deeply affecting Paul Jesson), he dances around his subject, marveling at the absurdities of life.

But it is perhaps at the close, his sanity restored, that Jacobi is at his most magnificent, and his Lear most human.  Creeping into consciousness, recognizing Cordelia (Pippa Bennett-Warner), he is all too frail, all too vulnerable and completely heartbreaking.  “I am old and foolish,” he mutters, creating a world of feeling with a simple line of dialogue.

Perhaps the ultimate secret of Jacobi’s Lear is simply the inner core of the actor himself.  Derek Jacobi has always subtly emerged from behind an air of quiet decency.  Even when playing villains, his persona is that of a soft-spoken, kindly man, rather than the epic, larger-than-life performer that usually attracts Lear.  King Lear only works as a play if one believes him capable of inspiring the love of Cordelia, Kent, Gloucester and the Fool.  Jacobi is the first performer I’ve seen who has been able to make this key component utterly believable.

Which returns us to one of our central questions – does Shakespeare make an optimistic statement with King Lear, or a pessimistic one?  Grandage, working with a bare stage, does not short-shrift the tragedy of the play.  Indeed, the blinding of Gloucester is one of the most horrific set-pieces I’ve ever seen on stage.  But I believe this production is ultimately one which lands on the side of optimism.  Jacobi’s Lear is a figure of transcendent humanity and depth of feeling.  Indeed, when he believes the hanged Cordelia may be returning to life, it is possible that Jacobi’s Lear dies of joy.  Without removing a stitch of clothing, Jacobi is often completely naked.

Much of the cast is uniformly excellent.  Gwilym Lee is wonderful as Edgar.  Often overshadowed by the more showy part of Edmund, Edgar is the more difficult in that he must make privation and his education in humanity believable prior to becoming monarch at play’s end.  Lee’s diction is superb and he brings a welcome physicality to the role. 

Alec Newman is less successful as Edmund.  It is a spirited performance, but Edmund, incapable of love or human feeling, must be a figure of evil urbanity.  Newman misses the silky, cruel cunning necessary to make Edmund truly captivating.

However, Gina McKee and Justine Mitchell are magnificent as Goneril and Regan, respectively.  Both have an electrifying presence, and each commands the stage with regal disdain.  These, too, are difficult parts, and in inexpert hands, Goneril and Regan come off as villains in an Agatha Christie play (think Diana Rigg in her disastrous turn under Oliver’s Lear).  Both McKee and Mitchell create haunting, brutal, and bewitching sisters.

The same cannot be said for Pippa Bennett-Warner, who is colorless as Cordelia.  Where Cordelia must be transcendent, loving and saintly, Bennett-Warner is simply business-like.  Her only effective moment comes when she plays a corpse.

Michael Hadley (Kent), Ron Cook (the Fool), and Tom Beard (Albany) all deliver expert performances.  However, something must be said about Gideon Turner’s Cornwall.  Turner provides perhaps the most amateurish performance I’ve ever seen on a professional stage.  His look and affect remind one of Keanu Reeves at this most sedated.  Bill and Ted Do Lear might make an amusing parody, but his casting is inexplicable in a production so marvelous.

But the problems with the production are mere quibbles compared to the enormity of its achievement.  During Jacobi’s death scene, there were audible gasps from the audience, and tears flowed readily.  After the lights dimmed, the play was met with (well-deserved) thunderous applause.  During his bows, Jacobi seemed visibly shaken and moved by his experience; he has lived Lear rather than played him.  The crowd would not stop its standing ovation until he came out yet a third time, at which point, near tears, he humbly blew a kiss in gratitude.  It felt like a benediction. 

This is a King Lear not to be missed.