Tale of 'King Lear' clear, grisly, believable

By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic

The best thing going for "King Lear" — the second production in this year's Shakespeare festival at Windward College's Paliku Theatre — is its clarity.

Starring in Shakespeare's tragedy "King Lear" are, from left, Laura Bach Buzzell as Goneril, Annie Lipscomb as Cordelia, Taurie Kinoshita as Regan, and Dann Seki as Lear. It's the second production of the Hawaii Shakespeare Festival and continues at Paliku Theatre, Windward Community College. Brad Goda

The difficulties in the production are those that are traditionally associated with it. Although "Lear" is considered Shakespeare's strongest and most mature work, it is not without problems for a contemporary audience expecting naturalistic drama where actions are clearly tied to motives and character psychology.

Shakespeare's characters often behave the way they do simply because he said so. Elizabethan audiences were quicker to accept their behavior at face value, were already familiar with the story antecedents because the playwright liberally borrowed plot lines from all sources, and simply relied on the actors to make it work.

The latter applies today, and the initial problem in "Lear" is to make believable the title character's turning on his favorite daughter because she is reluctant to publicly express her love for him.

The aged Lear is about to retire and split his kingdom equally among his three daughters. Goneril and Regan answer the call with flowery phrases. Cordelia demurs and is immediately disinherited and banished — a big pill to swallow in an opening scene for an unready audience.

Lear next descends into madness as Goneril and Regan turn against him and strip him of his retainers — some feel perhaps too abruptly and without enough of a fight.

What we miss in the opening scene of this production is a demonstration of Lear's heroically flawed stature, his immense ego, and his unquestioned and unchallenged power.

We also need a whisper of his new vulnerability, brought on by advanced age and perhaps the subconscious realization that he can no longer hold things together — politically and mentally.

Dann Seki takes on the challenge of Lear with a naturalistic approach. Seki is familiar to local audiences primarily through his appearances at Kumu Kahua in original works with local Hawaiian themes. Not surprisingly, his performance becomes more effective as Lear slips deeper into oblivion and the foolish and saddened man emerges from the shell of the once-imperious king.

His final scenes over Cordelia's body are especially moving.

In this production the Fool is clearly Cordelia, begging additional puzzling over why Lear and his loyal retainer Kent — also in disguise — do not recognize her.

Later the Fool abruptly disappears from the action and is reported as hanged — but only after Cordelia is dead by the same fate. In this respect the double casting opens more issues than it resolves.

Laura Bach Buzzell and Taurie Kinoshita are wickedly evil as the elder daughters. Nicholas Logue is staunchly loyal as Kent, and Brent Yoshikami is excellent when Edgar adopts his madman disguise. John Wat comes strongly into the part of Gloucester after the character is blinded in a parallel subplot of family infidelity.

There is an exhilarating grisliness to Gloucester's blinding as just-plucked eyeballs are tossed about. The elder daughters' death by poison and suicide are satisfyingly visible in the background.

The sword scenes, however, could use more conviction, and Lear's raging against the storm could do with more stage effects and less background music.

But "King Lear" is a powerful play that is not often staged in Hawai'i. Don't miss this opportunity to see it.