Ben Brantley, NY Times

March 27, 2014

“King Lear” has  lowered its voice, the better to be heard more clearly. The bluster quotient has been toned down in Arin Arbus’s thoughtful and affecting interpretation of this most daunting of tragedies, which opened on Thursday night at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Oh, don’t worry. Thunder still rumbles, swords still crack  noisily, and men still shout in defiance at the unbearable cruelties of the gods. Blood flows copiously enough to unsettle the squeamish, and that long-awaited fifth-act chorus  of “howls” is appropriately loud and harrowing.

Yet more than any “Lear” I’ve seen (and nobody knows all the “Lears” I’ve seen), this Theater for a New Audience production gives the impression of talking to – rather than yelling at- its audience. “Come closer,” it seems to say. “Listen carefully. You might just find yourself in what’s being said.” No matter that you and your own kin will never be royals. […continued]

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