Paul Gross has the chops for a convincing King Lear

King Lear

By William Shakespeare. Directed by Kimberley Rampersad. At the Festival Theatre, 55 Queen St., Stratford, through Oct. 29. stratfordfestival.ca or 1-800-567-1600

To cut to the chase: yes, he has the chops.

Canadian television and film luminary Paul Gross is an engrossing, convincing King Lear in the Stratford Festival’s second production of the play in less than a decade. He and director Kimberley Rampersad have the guts and vision to let this Lear be genuinely unlikeable at the start: an aging leader so accustomed to power and influence that he all but throws away the command to his daughters to convince him which one of them loves him most.

Cross this king and he’ll flip a table in a lightning-flash rage, but then he’ll turn on a dime and be charmingly eccentric, slapping his head and repeating his name.

Gross’s unkempt but still striking good looks, with his untrimmed white beard and long hair, fuel this characterization of someone who’s so used to being on top he’s kind of stopped trying.

This choice helps make sense of Lear’s descent into madness. The disrespect and deceit of his older daughters Goneril (Shannon Taylor) and Regan (Déjah Dixon-Green) is so bewildering that he cannot seem to process it, and seeks out the company of fellow outsiders, his Fool (Gordon Patrick White) and ally-in-disguise Kent (David W. Keeley), as his mind unravels. Tara Sky plays youngest daughter Cordelia.

Gross’s superb performance and some equally sterling work from mid-career Stratford stalwarts are the strongest elements of this production, along with the excellent pace and rhythm of Rampersad’s production.

Exactly where and when the production is taking place and its overall design concept are not as clear. Judith Bowden’s set of tall, rough black walls and platforms, with dust and garbage in some of the corners and long bars of white lights that illuminate at key moments (lighting by Chris Malkowski) seems purposely unspecific in its references.

Michelle Bohn’s costumes mingle early Modern elements (capes, gowns, chunky ornamental jewelry) with contemporary ones (trousers for women), again creating a time and place that seem intentionally noncommittal. Some of the shapes and colours of the costumes are extreme and do not flatter the actors. Esthetics are not the production’s strong point.

Happily, acting is, along with a commitment to equitable casting that led to perhaps the most diverse company in major roles that I’ve seen in a Stratford Shakespeare.

Michael Blake, familiar to Stratford audiences for a galvanizing performance as Othello in 2019, is mesmerizing as the bastard Edmund, who channels a deep rage as his disenfranchisement from society grows into a web of betrayal and cunning. André Sills offers one of his most focused performances in years as an initially lighthearted Edgar who descends into convincing madness and despair after his brother Edmund’s betrayal. Anthony Santiago is a very strong Gloucester and appropriately heart-rending in later scenes.

White, who is doing quite a line in fools these days (his jester Yorick was a highlight of last year’s “Hamlet-911”) expertly toes a line between daftness and profundity in his delivery of the Fool’s lines and in his strong stage presence. And the mighty Taylor is an absolute force as Goneril, so silkily convincing in her glib expression of devotion to her father initially and then laser-focused in her pursuit of power as the play goes on.

The staging of the famous storm during which Lear’s madness fully manifests is a visual and aural high point, with Miquelon Rodriguez’s sound design of thunder claps, Malkowski’s strobe-style lighting, and a hailstorm lashing down on a spotlighted Gross as hooded and caped actors claw at him, representing (as I read it) his demons taking over.

Especially in the second half, the actors lean into some of the sad humour of the material, and there are welcome laughs at the absurd humanity of some of the encounters. But there were also some misjudged staging moments that caused seemingly unintentional laughs on opening night, as when a swinging panel caused an actor to pop out comically in the middle of a serious moment.

Many audiences are likely to be drawn to this show due to Gross’s star power and he does not disappoint.

Nine years ago the festival staged this play with another big name in the title role, Colm Feore, and this is how things seem likely to continue: the best-known Shakespeare titles with screen-famous talent in major roles cycling through as headline events in the 1,800-seat Festival Theatre. That’s what audiences are looking for these days and what is likely to bankroll more adventurous work and lesser-known Shakespeares. And if it keeps building the profiles and capacities of the festival’s diverse, mid-career talent base, all the better.

In a few decades I’ll be looking forward to Blake and Sills’s Lears.

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