Review: Kenneth Branagh’s ‘King Lear’ Howls Into A Stormy, Rushed Muddle

Shakespeare never lacks for juicy insults, and King Lear is especially thick with verbal abuse. The unhinged title monarch viciously curses his daughter Goneril with rot in her ovaries and there’s a comically long string of invective the disguised Kent heaps upon villainous servant Oswald in front of Gloucester’s castle. In the trimmed version now running at The Shed I particularly miss one put-down—again, between Kent and Oswald. “Thou whoreson zed!” Kent sneers. “Thou unnecessary letter!” Gone from this sped-through, two-hour cut. But what would you expect? This is an unnecessary Lear.

The great Kenneth Branagh leads and co-directs a decidedly not-great production which often feels like a college effort—if the head of your drama department had made Shakespeare films 30-odd years ago. The school vibe (middling actors, muddled concept) is inevitable: the cast are all recent graduates from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Branagh being one RADA’s fanciest alums. Thus this Lear is both a tribute to his school and a throwback to the actor-manager tradition of surrounding yourself with lesser performers.

Scenic and costume designer Jon Bausor does give us evocative images to stare at before boredom sets in. Over the bare, circular stage hovers a giant disc with a hole at its center. Upon this vaguely Kubrickian oculus projection designer Nina Dunn casts images of starry nights or blue skies. The impression is simultaneously that of the earth (hi, Globe Theatre!), an eyeball and a hole in the heavens. A sinister symbol of surveillance? A cryptic harbinger of apocalypse? My mind went to Gloucester’s astrological pearl-clutching: “These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us.” As the story unfolds, actors appear clad in Iron Age furs and rough cloth, very Celtcore. Stonehengey monoliths roll into formation around the stage.

All of this could make for a savage and mystical King Lear, a much-needed fable about how unchecked political power creates a society in which “humanity must perforce prey on itself, like monsters of the deep” (also cut). Then Branagh & company open their mouths, and you have to suppress a laugh. Here they are, kitted out like pre-Roman Britons ready to bite the heads off chickens, and they spout refined Elizabethan verse in honeyed tones like fey fops in a Noël Coward farce. The collision of cultural signifiers is simply too silly.

Much unintended goofiness results from rushing through scenes and fileting the great speeches by Edmund, Edgar and Lear himself—and Branagh offers little gravitas to counterbalance the triviality. The veteran actor and director’s strength has never been gut-wrenching tragedy but twinkling comedy—as anyone who watched his Much Ado About Nothing and half of his Hamlet can attest. Even if his post-Falklands Henry V emphasized the horrors of war and the queasiness of victory, it also ended—per the history play—in fizzy romantic comedy. Branagh looks fit, energetic, and if the king has in fact a “white head,” then his hairdresser deserves a holiday bonus. Branagh’s vain, clueless king gets cackles where the desperate old man should elicit bleak chuckles. I’m not against treating Lear like black farce, but the laughs here don’t add anything to the non-interpretation. At one point, Lear collapses from what I suppose is a sudden aneurism or panic attack, not very convincingly. What I’ll remember most about Branagh’s perfunctory turn is when he goes full Gielgud and uses that rich, booming RADA voice to denounce the disloyal Regan and Goneril as “Haaaaaaaaaags!” This is complemented in the final death scene by a no-less-operatic, “Hooooowwwwl!” Some shows you see the budget on the stage, here it’s the tuition in the elocution.

The gloomy, often static action—heavy on staff fights and shouting—is co-directed by frequent Branagh collaborator Rob Ashford. Kent is played by a woman, not that it matters. Cordelia doubles as the Fool, inconsequently. I would have liked more gore in Gloucester’s eyeball gouging. The Shed is a vast, expensive, well-funded institution that, as far as I can tell, does very little for local theater artists. Across the city, small spaces like The Wild Project are fighting for survival; Soho Rep will soon vacate its Tribeca home; and everyone is feeling the pinch with lean seasons and one-person shows. All of which makes importing a dull British vanity project an insult that Shakespeare would envy.

King Lear | 2hrs. No intermission. | The Shed | 545 West 30th Street | 646-455-3494 | Buy Tickets Here