Lear '87 Archive (Condensed) Review

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(More customer reviews)Mabou Mines' Lear was much discussed when it opened because it featured a stellar cast of some of America's greatest stage actors but the production was leaden, literal, and cliche ridden. How does bad theater happen to great artists? This video is a fascinating fly-on-the-wall look at how it happens.
The video vividly turns the team behind the production into a vivid cast of characters. Director Lee Breuer's constant and confident reiteration of misinformation (such as that many scholars think that the fool was played by Shakespeare's lover) becomes a running gag. Ruth Malezech's compulsive peacemaking, Isabel Monks no-nonsense orneriness and Karen-Kendall's deer-in-the-headlights conscientiousness make them all fascinating character studies.
It is disheartening that the actors bold and fascinating readings of their roles in the first hour become bad cartoons by the end, but what a fascinating lesson to see the process by which it happened. The actors usually refer to family and people they have known when discussing Lear. Breuer usually only refers to film, television and "archetypes." Bit by bit he wears them down, convincing them to go for stereotype over reality, and it is an amazing thing to watch.

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Jill Godmilow's six-hour archive of the Mabou Mines ensemble's controversial 1990, gender-reversed production of Shakespeare's King Lear documents the first two-week workshop on the play at the Theatrical Outfit in Atlanta. Director Lee Breuer and the cast are seen working on transposing the play to 1950's America in this intimate record of a master class in avant-garde performance work. Taken from over 100 hours of material, this condensed archive comes with a 32-page handbook with guides for tracking the production.

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