What has always proved fascinating about King Lear, Shakespeare's tale of a fallen monarch and the intrigues that consume his family, is the play's overriding sense of absurdity and emptiness -- the genuine, unashamed weirdness of the Bard's text. With its bloodthirsty daughters, wise court jesters and nobles disguised as madmen, the script reads like a deliciously debased fairy tale. The seminal story of deliberate incongruities and carefree gallows humor, King Lear was Dadaistic centuries before Dada -- spilling with the kind of nihilism that, occasionally, is a mark of genius.
At least in this regard, I have found some kindred spirits at Centerstage, Baltimore's premier venue for drama both old and new, which opened its 2005 season with Shakespeare's warped tragedy. Directed by Irene Lewis, the theatre's production of King Lear is a celebration of the play's looniest aspects. Pulled off mostly with modern accoutrements, the show draws a lot of laughs. But it also has a tendency to divert attention from the efficiently individualized performances that are its lifeblood.
On a set that could easily have been designed by Francis Picabia, complete with dirty plaster walls and wires held taut overhead, Centerstage's actors bring to life the inhabitants of Shakespeare's savage kingdom, most of them in trench coats. With his lands split among his eldest daughters and his once beloved youngest child Cordelia (Heidi Armbruster) exiled for supposed ingratitude, King Lear (Stephen Markle) anticipates a comfortable retirement. But as his scheming scions, Regan and Goneril (Sarah Knowlton and Diana LaMar) dismiss his attendants and show him increasing disrespect, the old king slips into wild desperation. In its best moments, this production makes you feel that something is rotten in the state of ... well, King Lear.
Figuratively and, in this rendition, literally, the old king's former dominion is cracking at the seams. Filial disrespect seems to be a popular pastime, as one of Lear's loyal subjects, the Duke of Gloucester (David Cromwell) is blackmailed and betrayed by his bastard son, Edmund (Jon David Casey). All the last symbols of goodness, from Cordelia to Gloucester's one dutiful child, Edgar (Tony Ward), banished from his land, the king succumbs to madness, wandering into an onstage storm that includes dripping water, eerie light clusters and set walls that fall with thunderous booms.
Though Centerstage's King Lear works incredibly well, it never twists its actors' personalities to the demands of the script, an effect that adds a fascinating eclecticism to this supremely eclectic presentation. Thus we have Markle -- whose natural, confident delivery and magnetic vitality bust apart any expectations of a decrepit, hapless Lear -- sharing the stage with Casey's sneering, rockstar riff on Edmond. Their performances hit with plenty of force, some of it a little unnecessary, making humbler depictions, such as Michael Rudko's turn as Lear's advisor, Kent, and Cromwell's Gloucester, harder to notice and appreciate.
Aside from Markle's smartly original interpretation, Lewis has decided to err on the side of convention, typecasting an innocently blonde Cordelia, an honest and stalwart Edgar, and equally venomous elder daughters. But there are plenty of temptations that Centerstage has smartly avoided, chief among them the willingness to make easy modern-day parallels that plague contemporary Shakespeare. We have all seen enough headlines about a certain lame-duck politician troubled by fearsome rainstorms and, quite frankly, we don't need another reminder.
So when does the madness peak? Probably when, exasperated with his master's disloyal daughters, Lear's fool (Laurence O'Dwyer), venting a long, primal scream, charges around the stage throwing high-heeled shoes at the rest of the royal court. But Shakespeare is hard to outdo. In a scene that was actually in the original script, Lear, driven out of his wits by his progeny's cruelty, earnestly addresses an itinerant madman as a "philosopher," trying to hold a serious discussion with his feral new friend. Yet in the production's stressed and stylized emptiness, Lewis has taken care to convey the details of each character's emotional life, even if it calls for a little high-concept maneuvering and the occasional outburst.
Instead of hauling out a full-bore period show, Centerstage has whittled Shakespeare's massive script down to a single message. What makes Lear excellent literature is its ability to inspire volume upon volume of criticism and analysis. But to be enjoyable, or simply manageable, a production of King Lear has to latch on to the basics of its source with true precision. There is much more that could have been done, from playing up the religious allusions in Shakespeare's plot to the conflict between sexual purity and depravity that runs through each line. Instead, we are left with a powerfully orchestrated, competently nightmarish portrait of one man's descent into chaos and the ills that, sometimes for no reason at all, threaten to rend the world around him.
King Lear will be playing at Centerstage Theatre through November 6. Approximate showtimes are 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, with afternoon showings Saturday-Sunday at 2 p.m. Visit http://www.centerstage.org for ticket reservations and details.
