A rewarding King Lear commands you to park it
Summer doesn’t get much better than an evening in the park, watching a great tragedy.
The park is Southmoreland, on the eastern edge of the Plaza. The evening is courtesy of the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, an expert party host in its 23rd season. And the tragedy is an unmissable King Lear, directed by Sidonie Garrett and starring John Rensenhouse.
Preshow festivities — gate greeters, lecturers, Shakespeare parodies, food and drink vendors — set the seasonal mood and offer amusement to balance Shakespeare’s cruel, gripping masterpiece. So get to the park early, but dedicate yourself to the whole night. The festival’s production is fluid and absorbing, and the acting, by more cast members than can be singled out here, is uniformly fine. Give or take a show day’s weather, this is as perfect an evening as summer affords Kansas Citians.
I chanced to see Lear on a cool, breezy evening, but the play’s intensity is enough to provide distraction from any meteorological discomfort (as well as city sounds). In festival artistic director Garrett’s care, Shakespeare’s characters come alive, intriguing us with their sometimes savage self-interest. The story’s betrayals reveal some of humankind’s worst traits (Shakespeare had plenty of material in England’s royal history up to that time), and the destructive actions taken by family members against one another — rivalries and competition that turn poisonous — remain sadly recognizable today.
Lear is preparing to voluntarily give up his throne to make way for the next generation, and he decides to divide his kingdom among his three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia — Kim Martin-Cotten, Cinnamon Schultz and Emily Peterson, respectively, all very good — who must first profess how much they love him. While the two older sisters falsely charm and flatter him, Cordelia lets her bond speak for itself: “I cannot heave my heart into my mouth,” she says. “You have begot me, bred me, loved me. I return those duties back as are right fit, obey you, love you and most honor you.”
Sincerity, especially from a relative, can be a difficult thing to correctly gauge, and Lear’s emotional radar malfunctions. But that’s one of the beautiful components of Shakespeare’s art here. In Lear — the play and the character — the Bard paints the inner landscape of human nature in relief against the broader social canvas. Lear disowns the devoted youngest daughter and determines to spend his senior years between the houses of his remaining offspring and their husbands (Brian Paulette, as Duke of Cornwall, and Collin Vorbeck, as Duke of Albany, both adept). For company, he takes his Fool (the able Phil Fiorini).
The Earl of Kent (a strong Matthew Rapport) calls Lear on his mistaken assumption and is banished for his trouble. But he remains loyal to Lear, whose pride and self-importance keep him from distinguishing authentic sentiment from fake.
It’s easier to see others’ faults more clearly than one’s own, and in a parallel story line, the Earl of Gloucester (Mark Robbins, forceful and moving) misreads his own sons: the legitimate Edgar (the excellent physical actor Jacques Roy, also this production’s fight director), a son “by order of law … no dearer in my account,” and the bastard Edmund — “there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged.” Edmund, skillfully portrayed by Kyle Hatley, is not only a bastard but also an SOB — a seemingly ordinary next-door guy who’s really a scheming, violent knave.
The play isn’t all ungrateful children and chess-game maneuverings. The emotions and machinations of the first half (long but never a slog) build in the second, culminating in swordfights, murder, anguish, torture and madness. I found all of it riveting — though I reflexively turned away from the eye-gouging scene. The stagecraft was that convincing.
Up to the festival’s usual high standards as well are the costuming (by Shakespeare-in-the-park veteran Mary Traylor) and the effectively designed modular set (by Chaz Bell), which moves around and into place with seeming ease. If you hear thunder or see a flash, you might think the weather is turning; more likely, it’s Rusty Wandall’s sound and Ward Everhart’s lighting.
But any appointment we make with King Lear depends on the lead, and Rensenhouse is superb. As a good king but clueless father, he is sensitive yet commanding as he slowly peels away the ruler’s many layers. He makes his Lear’s misguided decision making and the man’s descent into madness nuanced and deeply affecting. It’s a lordly, heartbreaking performance.
When the play ends, the hour is late, but the night hasn’t felt drawn out. Garrett’s well-mounted rendition of this deeply satisfying story is essential as both civic event and drama. It’s an experience I won’t be alone in wanting to repeat at least once before this summer’s last show.
