Review: 'The King' for the common man

November 12, 2015 11:01 pm • Last Updated: November 25, 2015 1:53 pm

By Lee Howard
Business Editor

What if King Lear's powers were stripped of him and his kingdom had devolved into a junk pile where his "subjects" were empty water bottles, stray coffee cups and a well-used broom?

That's the premise of this evening's 7:30 production of "The King" at the Donald L. Oat Theater in Norwich directed by Jim Stidfole and produced by Hygienic Theaterwerks. Featuring sound design by Gabrielle Kastelle created specifically for this production, it's an interesting entwining of Shakespeare with a good dose of the Theatre of the Absurd.

And at the center of it all is 81-year-old actor John Basinger, who portrays a down-and-out "King" with a mesmerizing intensity. Basinger said he memorized the King Lear part years ago for a production that never materialized, and hit upon the idea of using the lines in a different context in which all the other parts besides Lear are only hinted at.

The words are all Shakespeare's, but the part is heavily edited to fit a scenario in which a demented bum pontificates on "corrupted blood," "false justice" and the like. By emphasizing the insanity of someone so divorced from reality that he thinks himself a king even among a pile of junk, parallels to the original tragedy become more and more clear, since King Lear eventually realized the folly of power when he began to lose grip on his subjects.

"They told me I was everything; 'tis a lie," one of Shakespeare's lines, seems just as tragic coming out of the bum's mouth as it did from King Lear's. But, since the bum might have someone else to blame rather than himself, the line seems more touching and universal as well.

That's the power of "The King" and the interesting part about this piece, which premiered at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. By taking Lear and making him an ordinary, misunderstood man, we begin to hear echoes of our own lives in the original Shakespearean lines.

"Who is it that can tell me who I am?" becomes less of a challenge and more of a complaint when it is uttered by an unpowerful figure rather than a king. "I fear I am not in my perfect mind" sings as a lament rather than a revelation.

Yet throughout the one-character play, with a minimal set revolving around a pile of junk center stage during a Wednesday rehearsal, the words of Shakespeare and the acting of Basinger ring out with sparkling conviction. It's a tour de force that rivets the attention of serious theater-goers, though anyone with little background in Shakespeare might think it simply farcical.

Through it all, Basinger, whether doing a jig, crashing a trash can or pretending to talk to a broom, lays bare the soul of The King, a role that caps four decades in theater. It's a part that Basinger brings alive with perfect timing and an innate sense of delivery geared toward a modern audience.

l.howard@theday.com

Twitter: @KingstonLeeHow