Lear at the Fountain of Youth

Kenneth Branagh's production is nipped, tucked, and facile.

- SARA HOLDREN

THERE'S A DIFFERENCE in the way Americans do mediocre Shakespeare and the way Brits do it. Ours tends to be easier to recognize for what it is. American acting training is heterogeneous and feelings-forward; we put a lot of stock in notions of authenticity, and we're scared of things above, beyond, and fundamentally opposed to realism. We deflate the cosmic into the casual, making word salad while we're at it. For the Brits, there's at least a base-level expectation of textual rigor. At the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art one summer, I spent three straight days reading Pericles aloud as a director snapped, "What does that mean?!" If anyone answered, "Well, uh, basically-" she'd scream, "No!," and we'd start again. You don't leave RADA not knowing what you're saying or without an appreciation for the richness and versatility of Shakespearean language.

KING LEAR BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. CO-DIRECTED BY KENNETH BRANAGH, ROB ASHFORD, AND LUCY SKILBECK. THE SHED. THROUGH DECEMBER 15.

Still, being able to speak Shakespeare will only get you so far. It will probably mean-as is the case with the King Lear now visiting the Shed, starring Kenneth Branagh and co-directed by Branagh, Rob Ashford, and Lucy Skilbeck-that you can tell a clear story with at least a superficial feeling of urgency. It won't mean that you've decided what that story, deep in its bloody viscera, is really about. Tellingly, in an interview with the Shed's artistic director, Alex Poots, in which Poots asks Branagh to share his "overarching vision" for the play, Branagh responds by talking about not an idea but an experience: "I first saw King Lear when I was 17 years old," he says.