This is not so advanced warning, but, in the grand tradition of Manhattan summers, there’s a fun and free production of King Lear in Battery Park tonight. I know how very fun and free it is, because I capped off a great 4th of July weekend by watching it, along with a gaggle of people and mosquitoes, all across the range of Battery Park.
Talk about a setting. After the opening scene inside Castle Clinton, where Lear misguidedly divides his kingdom between his evil, sycophant daughters Goneril and Reagan leaving poor sweet Cordelia out on a limb, an actor shouts “Follow them that way” and the whole crowd got up and followed them to the next scene in the grass beneath the trees. Punctuating the play like that was not only lively, but it created a great way of cutting from scene to scene without curtain, props, or lighting. With players hiding behind trees, singing as the setting sun fell on the Statue of Liberty, or sword fighting in the dusk lit by flashlights and fireflies, the setting worked beautifully, and Battery Park’s food vendors and tourists faded into the background as the play went on.
Put on by the New York Classical Theater Company, the acting was solid and the interpretation of the play traditional, perhaps a bit lighter than this deeply troubling play really is. Donald Grody’s ‘pathetic old man’ interpretation of Lear played better in his madness and despair than initially when he haughtily dismisses Cordelia. Overall, it was amazingly well done on a small budget, suggesting all you need for a good production is to give a cast of hardworking actors a little direction.
That sounds like great fun! I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anything like that in a major city either.
At our school we used to do some fun stuff on the edge of our main sports field that bordered the woods.
We had a couple of lovely productions (A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Robin Hood) as kids ran over mounds of mud and behind trees and over grass… Very fun; should be done more often 🙂
Such a beautiful info. It’s so nice site. We love to see more on this site. Keep on updating… MonkAreRee Bali ***
Such a beautiful info. It’s so nice site. We love to see more on this site. Keep on updating… MonkAreRee Bali ***
WOW I miss New York. I wish they did more stuff like this down here in DC.