'King Lear' Without the Tears? It Is Madness

Christina Sajous and Andre De Shields in "King Lear" at the Folger. (By Scott Suchman -- Folger Theatre)

The world, as Shakespeare describes it in "King Lear," is a "great stage of fools" -- and no one is a bigger fool than prideful Lear himself. The version of this plaintive moan of a tragedy at Folger Theatre drives home that point in many ways, including a novel one: Lear, in the throes of madness, absent-mindedly kills his faithful court jester, the Fool.

It's an intriguing, ironic twist that signals a provocative intellect guiding a taut and accessible, though dry-eyed, treatment. You come away from the Folger "Lear," mounted by director Alfred Preisser and the Classical Theatre of Harlem, with some stimulating insights, yet Preisser's no-more-tears formula makes for an evening devoid of powerful feeling.

That is disappointing, for though the shunning of Falstaff (in "Henry IV, Part 2") and the funeral of Romeo and Juliet come close, no ending in Shakespeare is more pitiable than that of Lear bearing dead Cordelia in his arms, cognizant at last of the wreck he's made of everything. The visage of the old man, bereft of allies, kingdom and spirit, wailing over the body of the only child to truly love him is perhaps Shakespeare's most wrenching expression of human folly.

Preisser's cast, led by Andre De Shields's lean and graceful Lear, cleanly sketches the fault lines in this benighted royal family, particularly in the opening scene, when the king divvies up his realm for his three daughters and expects showers of encomiums in return. And with a wardrobe and set designed vaguely in the style of the pre-Christian Middle East, this production incisively suggests antiquity and the ritualistic perquisites an absolute ruler might demand.

Still, the longer we follow Lear's descent into crazed despondency -- and the parallel journey of the play's other old man, Gloucester, to excruciating suffering -- the more detached we feel from the play's pathos. Getting to the poignant heart of "Lear" is challenging in the best of circumstances. The difficulty here lies with the stoic quality that creeps into some performances, in ways that hinder the verse from fully engaging the emotions.

Preisser has trimmed pretty significantly; major roles such as Kent (Jerome Preston Bates) feel relatively minor. The effect is to stress fleetly the disintegration of the central family, as the daughters who betray the king, Goneril (Chantal Jean-Pierre) and Regan (Deidra LeWan Starnes), turn violently on each other. One layer of tragic irony is that they're destroyed not by disloyalty to their father but by a competitive jealousy of their own: the mutual attraction to the magnetic and malicious Edmund (Ty Jones).

Jones's approach to Edmund -- who's locked in his own sibling rivalry with the pure-hearted Edgar (Danyon Davis) -- is just right. He's one of Shakespeare's soft villains, capable of great guile and, more important, remorse. Sly and charming -- and not above a blatant appeal to a spectator's sympathy with a flashy handspring -- Jones gets ably at the core of his character's duality.

As Lear, De Shields carries himself with the proper haughtiness. The royal fitness program seems to be working, too; when the 61-year-old actor is called on to strip down to a G-string, you quickly surmise that the body-fat count must be in the single digits. (It's worth noting that De Shields was also in the original cast of the Broadway musical version of "The Full Monty.")

But even after Lear's defenses are stripped away in his stormy scene on the heath, the hard shell of the performance never fully cracks. Grief does not melt the iciness. And if Lear is to break our hearts, his must cleave as well.

Jean-Pierre and Starnes manage to convey the calloused sense of lifelong entitlement the two sisters have harbored, and Todd Scofield's weak-livered Albany is ineffectual to a satisfying degree. The Cordelia of Christina Sajous is suitably valorous, although the decision to turn her into a ninja warrior in the last act comes across as silly.

The other performances are merely serviceable -- except for Ken Schatz's remarkable Fool. Made to look like a half-wit -- think the backwoods denizens of "Deliverance" -- this Fool not only has all his wits about him but also seems to respond to Lear's on an instinctive level. It's as if he truly were a facet of the king's psyche.

When De Shields mindlessly sticks a knife in Schatz's gut, however, it's a reminder of nothing so plain as that this blighted king will never be free of the fool within.

King Lear, by William Shakespeare. Directed by Alfred Preisser. Set, Troy Hourie; costumes, Kimberly Glennon; lighting, Aaron Black. With Duane Allen, JJ Area, Shayshahn MacPherson, Ian Lockhart, Francis Mateo, Zuanna Sherman. About 2 hours 30 minutes. Through Feb. 18 at Folger Theatre, 201 East Capitol St. SE. Call 202-544-7077 or visit http://www.folger.edu/theatre.