Word: goneril
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...rest of the cast fares less well, unable to break free of Sellars's spell, like automatons in a technocracy. Grace Shohet is properly bitchy as Goneril and Anne Clarke makes a vapidly cruel Regan but they remain one-dimensional. James Bundy plays Kent with remarkable sincerity but his brawl with Oswald (a surprisingly meaty role in the hands of David Prum) sinks to absurdity. Mathew Horsman and Judah Mandlebaum labor with Albany and Cornwall and Max Cantor skates onstage intermittently as the court's errand...
From the wings enter two crimson-draped women, who commence a ritualistic dance in the darkness surrounding Lear. The audience, distracted from the old king's contortions, stares into the gloom and realizes that Regan and Goneril have joined their father on the heath...
Most of the cast is competent but uninspired, and clearly a bit confused about how to interpret the play. Kirsten Giroux's Goneril is a shallow, cold bitch-queen; Janet Rodger's Regan a bit more of a bitchy housewife. Henry Woronicz's Edmund swaggers like a comic hero, an illegitimate Petruchio. Harold Levine's Cornwall is a snivelling rat of a villain, more disgusting than threatening...
...chosen on the basis of their comic rather than musical talents. Exhibiting a superb sense of timing, Debra Smigel delivers the best performance of the night as Dr. Olson, the pompous social scientist who is helpless without her Ph.D. Jackie Osherow has some fine moments as the fruit-crazed Goneril, and Sarah McCluskey as Adeline pronounces some less than stellar lines with a cute Marilyn Monroe pout...
...daughters scarcely help. Goneril (Jane White) spits out her lines like a fishwife. As Regan, Maria Tucci seems to be tapping an unseen toe in overwrought pique, and Michele Shay's Cordelia might have strayed onstage from an elocution class. Only Lee Richardson's loyal Kent seems equally loyal to Shakespeare. The rest outshine the dark with unlit candles...