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By Bill Altreuter

I've been reminded that I have not mentioned seeing "King Lear" at Shakespeare in Delaware Park two weeks ago. We were at the "streaker show" and if the Buffalo News thinks that couple was in their 30's they have a very different body image for the typical Western New Yorker than I do. Mid to late 20's, tops.

I've been looking forward to "Lear", which has been one of my favorites since I started reading Shakespeare. I half suspect that one one of the reasons Saul Elkin runs the thing is because "Lear" is his favorite too, and this way he gets a crack at it. (I think the chance to play Falstaff might be another reason.) Even when he isn't directing or acting Elkin defines the Shakespeare in the Park experience: his plummy recorded announcement at the start of each performance is as much a part of my summer now as the sound of John Sterling on the radio. He's assembled a pretty fair company for Shakespeare-- Tim Newell's Fool is well-done, just as you'd expect from Newell, and although Becca Elkin's Cordella was typecasting of a sort, it was nevertheless a role she is well-fitted for. I'd say the two standouts were Dan Walker as Cornwall, and Tom Zindle as Kent. Kent is easy to carry off, I suppose-- he's the only consistently likable character in the play besides Cordelia-- but Zindle did the disguise parts with brio, changing accents and body English to suit the parts. Walker was menacing-- he's a big guy, and he used his size well, the way a bully would. I flinched as he put out stupid Gloucester's eyes-- it was convincingly played. It occurs to me that it might have been interesting to see Walker as Lear and Elkin as Cornwall. A bigger, more powerful looking Lear might give a better sense of the king's fall from power and decline into insanity, and Lear is himself something of a bully in the first act. It would require Walker to play older, which I think he could do, and Elkin to bring something different to the part-- although Cornwall is Regan's husband he could be older than she without it seeming too odd. I don't think that Lear has to be cast to an age contemporary necessarily, but since it always is, it is hard to know.

I'd like to see more of that sort of thing from Shakespeare in Delaware Park, actually. Swapping roles from night to night-- Iago Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Othello on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, say-- would mix it up, and keep it fresh. We get "Merry Wives" next, but CLA will miss it. Too bad. "Merry Wives" is almost a sitcom, and I think it is well-suited for a summer evening's entertainment.

Full post as published by Outside Counsel on July 15, 2008 (boomark / email).