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And more painful still, Jacksons Lear fails to transcend it.
Never mind that the first word of that line isnt actually Well but Sir anything for a joke.
She too has been stripped of her full emotional range in the plays opening scene.
As the play trudges forward, very few actors make it out alive.
Underneath the productions winks and nods, theres nothing there meanwhile, the play languishes somewhere in the wings.
Most distressing of all, Jackson, for all her innate and palpable power, isnt saving it.
Shockingly, she seems cut off from her emotional center.
Is her Lear wounded by what he perceives as Cordelias betrayal?
Is he shaken to the core with guilty terror when he realizes the deadly mistake hes made?
Perhaps he is, but I cant feel it.
She might have the varnish of a complete man, but the depths remain invisible.
Its not all on her: Shes being unforgivably undermined by the soundtrack.
The constant monotonous underscoring is infuriating.
Rather than heightening the text, it virtually eliminates our ability to engage with it.
Theyre not living the play, theyre waiting it out.
Not so for Gloucesters son Edgar, who, in Sean Carvajals hands, is lost at sea.
But nearly all the pathos of thisKing Learlies in the haphazard wreckage of the production that could have been.
King Learis at the Cort Theatre.
