Lear
Written by Young Jean Lee
Directed by James D. Palmer
St. Peter’s Church, 621 W. Belmont (map)
thru June 22 | tickets: $25 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
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Captivating design. Messy script.
Red Tape Theatre presents
Lear
Review by Lawrence Bommer
The most convincing part of this strange, confrontational 75-minute Chicago premiere–a puzzle play by experimental dramatist Young Jean Lee–is Emily Guthrie’s literally captivating set design. The audience find themselves entirely enclosed in the sprawling and well-appointed modern living room of the daughters of King Lear and their henchmen, good brother Edmund and bad brother Edgar. We’re lined up, unseen but occasionally acknowledged, guests. Facing us is a fractured, regretful quintet (including the good daughter Cordelia). They present special pleas for audience assent.
Still, dad’s destruction is a big haunting deal for these unhappy survivors. It’s enough to turn their mercurial dialog into a busy broth: It ranges from small talk detailing their casual cruelty to defensive apologetics to reflexive recriminations to the usual family friction and sibling rivalry to some un-Shakespearean hanky-panky between Edmund and Cordelia. (Contrast Shakespeare’s extreme eloquence with references here to “a horse fucking you and sucking the shit off its dick.”)
Tonal shifts occur with whiplash speed, with a reflective, quiet denouement that finally brings the proceedings into clarity (if you can recall what happened), all reflections on how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child. Guilt and denial hang heavy in the air—but so do accusations. (The audience is even given a chance to leave if they feel complicit in this clan’s dirty doings.)
The final scene in this strange update presents another family of children whose dad just died. In a surprisingly straightforward monolog Johnard Washington goes from playing Big Bird to depicting a kid wanting his dad back and missing him much. The loss, shared by the others, hits us harder than anything before: It’s the one direct and unequivocal confession in an otherwise enigmatic play.
It’s not quite enough, however, to provide the emotion lacking in the earlier cryptic byplay. Director James Palmer works with an adept cast to give life and the illusion of direction to these narcissists and moral midgets. But, strangely and perhaps inevitably, even unwitnessed, the king in the storm–and poor, blind Gloucester too–seem more real than the cynics who betray them.
Near the end, there’s a symbolic cleaning of the stage by the cast. It seems almost a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment of the mess that the playwright has intentionally made of “King Lear.” Could this amount to an apology?
Rating: ★★
Lear continues through June 22nd at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 621 W. Belmont (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays 7pm. Tickets are $25, and are available online through Tix.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at RedTapeTheatre.org. (Running time: 75 minutes without intermission)
 
 
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Photos by Austin D. Oie
artists
cast
Amanda Drinkall, Meghan Reardon, Johnard Washington, Josh Davis, Anita Kavuu, Miriam Reuter, Jake Szczepaniak
behind the scenes
James Palmer (director), Emily Guthrie (set design), Izumi Inaba (costumes), Kyle Land (lighting design), Jarrod Bainter (production manager), Casey Bentley (stage manager), Cait Chiou (props design), Laura Durham (asst. director), William Glick (asst. director), Greg Poljacik (fight choreographer), Emmett Rensin (dramaturg), Austin D. Oie (photos)
13-0524
