One of the biggest obstacles to Shakespeare is the ubiquity of his work. Even if we don’t think we know the plays, we know them—ever since we first saw The Lion King. A play we don’t see as often is one of Shakespeare’s biggest, most tragic tragedies, King Lear, currently playing at Post5 Theatre. (Although honestly, the first episode of Netflix’s Fuller House seems to be some sort of Stoppardian meta-Lear—down to the banishment of the youngest daughter for no reason other than she didn’t want to heap unnecessary praise on a venerable institution—but without, for better or worse, the bloodshed.)
The basics are familiar: King Lear splits his kingdom between his three daughters based on how much they love him, but the only good one (Cordelia) refuses to wax poetic for him, so he disinherits her. Goneril and Regan, the other two, are the absolute worst, and immediately start plotting against literally everyone.
Post5’s Lear is Tobias Andersen, who, at nearly 80, and after a 50-plus-year career in regional theater and Hollywood, is an age-appropriate mad king. Andersen brings a chilling knowledge of madness to the role. He walks across his mind like it’s covered with cracking ice, sometimes gingerly toeing the next step, sometimes stomping with a manic rage.
