Stage Notes: Lear

By Tom Murrin

Playwright/director Young Jean Lee is fearless. She has taken on, as themes for her shows, her Korean heritage (Songs of the Dragon Flying to Heaven), born-again Christians (Church), and African-American stereotypes (The Shipment). Here she takes on Shakespeare. Well, not exactly; it isn't really centered on the fears and feelings of an early British king as he nears death. Lee focuses on the adult children of Lear, and what they owe their father. I spoke with Lee.

Hi Young Jean. No one's ever accused you of not being brave when you decide to do a new play. What do we have here?

It's basically a response to King Lear, without any Lear. There's no old man in the play. It's basically about the kids. The plays starts when the old men, Lear and Gloucester, both of them fathers, and they're out in the storm, and they've been kicked out.

So they're not in the play at all.

It's kind of a creepy thing, with the kids in this big palace and they know that they're out in the storm, and they might be dead, and they are trying every strategy they can think of to not be bothered by this.

Fill me in here. There are five actors, three women and two men.

The three daughters of Lear and the two sons of Gloucester.

Now who is Gloucester?

He was in Lear's court; he was a friend of Lear.

Wasn't there a jester too, in Shakespeare's play?

There was a fool; he's out in the storm. Only the kids (the adult children) are in the play, with the knowledge that the fathers are out in the storm, and they're trying not to care.

Do I take it, then, that's it's really about what it means to lose a parent?

Yes, that's what the play is about. It's more about the children and their relation to a dying parent: the feeling of guilt, of not being there for them. It's almost like I looked at [Shakespeare's Lear] and I wondered what perspective I could relate to, and it was the kids' perspective that I can relate to. Everyone I know is dealing with the issue of aging parents. My parents are not well.

So what happens?

Everything starts to unravel and the play goes in surprising directions, and ends up in an unexpected place. It goes in a direction that is as far away from Lear that you can get.

I understand that you worked on Lear at U. C. Berkeley when you were a grad student. I was writing a PhD thesis on Lear. It defeated me, like Moby Dick. So I'm going back to take it on again. It was the whale that defeated me, and I'm trying to take it on again. I think that's it.

Soho Rep, 46 Walker St., (212) 352-3101. Jan. 7-31, Tues-Sun., 7:30 p.m. $30/$40.

Saturday, March 20

Stage Notes: Lear

By Tom Murrin

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