The truly stunning element in Oakland Theater Project\u2019s \u201cKing Lear\u201d \u2014 for some, Shakespeare\u2019s most heart-wrenching play \u2014 is one\u00a0character: the Fool. It\u2019s brilliant that\u00a0director (and OTP co-founder\/co-artistic director) Michael Socrates Moran cast\u00a0actor-composer-singer and longtime Bay Area performing artist Rinde Eckert in the key role. Seated, initially, half naked on the stage (which is essentially a huge sandbox) in a black fedora, his eyes masked at times\u00a0by a bandage (very Beckettish), often motionless but seeming to hear messages from the beyond, he is riveting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And how equally brilliant that Eckert\u2019s sometime collaborator, composer Paul Dresher, provides\u00a0live\u00a0music\u00a0onstage\u00a0with Joel Davel\u00a0that transforms the Fool\u2019s snarky-wise commentary into song.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a play most often seen with the king as the central focus, it\u2019s lovely to highlight the play\u2019s wittiest, most poetic character.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of course, it\u2019s\u00a0the king whose faux pas sets the plot in motion when he informs his three daughters that, being old, he is dividing his kingdom into three sections in advance of his demise. When he asks each to articulate her love for him, and his beloved youngest Cordelia,\u00a0played by\u00a0Dina Zarif\u00a0dressed in puritanical white (the\u00a0colorful, varied costumes are\u00a0by Denise F. Altaffer), declines to shower him with empty praise, he flies into a rage. He\u00a0banishes her and generally upsets the entire court\u2019s equilibrium.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This \u201cLear\u201d has\u00a0an amusing contemporary flair.\u00a0Some servants are snorting cocaine, and\u00a0modern gadgets are among the props.\u00a0It\u2019s also a huge-cast show that\u2019s very loud if not always clarion-clear in the actors\u2019 Shakespearean speech. There are 25 performers not counting the musicians. Many form a sort of chorus of courtiers;\u00a0others are Indian monks lurking about (Hindu motifs proliferate throughout.\u00a0Dresher\u2019s compositions are influenced by Indonesian music.)<\/p>\n
The set by Sam Fehr includes live projections of the onstage activity as well as other scenes, with an eclipsed sun as a central motif. \u201cThese late eclipses of the sun and moon\/Portend no good to us,\u201d comments Lear, prophetically. There\u2019s lot going on all the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Edmund \u2014 the\u00a0bad-boy bastard son of the loyal Duke of Gloucester (the always wonderful David Sinaiko) \u2014 is played here, quite brilliantly, by gangly Dean Linnard, as a hilariously clownish figure rather than a truly evil one.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some characterizations don\u2019t work as well as Linnard\u2019s, though \u2014 such as the king\u2019s two ungrateful, one-note, screeching daughters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But most egregious, this Lear (played by\u00a0J Jha) gives himself nowhere to go emotionally.\u00a0In a grating, thunderous voice, he begins to rant and roar so early on, and is so lacking in subtlety or nuance throughout,\u00a0it\u2019s impossible to feel compassion for him. Even when he\u2019s presumably at his most vulnerable, cradling the dead Cordelia in his arms, his sobbing sounds fake. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of course, there are plenty of other characters to care about. Among them is the loyal Edgar, who ends up wandering around the heath as a madman, played with deep sympathy by Tyler Aguallo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But as far as stirring our compassion for the \u201cfond, foolish old man\u201d whose downfall we watch for three hours, it\u2019s not the king but rather the Fool\u2019s eerie insight and sharp tongue \u2014 and his placid face and the haunting melodies he sings \u2014 that register most strongly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oakland Theater Project\u2019s \u201cKing Lear\u201d continues through Oct. 11 at\u00a0Z Space\u2019s Steindler Stage, 450 Florida St., San Francisco. Tickets are\u00a0$10 to 100 at oaklandtheaterproject.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The post Review:\u00a0The Fool stands out in Oakland Theater Project\u2019s \u2018King Lear\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Local News Matters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The truly stunning element in Oakland Theater Project\u2019s \u201cKing Lear\u201d \u2014 for some, Shakespeare\u2019s most heart-wrenching play \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-483331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}