Shakespeare Theatre trimmed ‘King Lear’ - and made it a box-office champ

WASHINGTON – They wanted to create a “King Lear” that percolated like a thriller. And that’s the strong brew audiences are getting – in what has turned out to be one of the biggest hits in the history of Shakespeare in Washington, D.C.

“I find so many people coming up to me, and they’ve been, you know, burned by Shakespeare so many times,” said Patrick Page, who plays the title role in the Shakespeare Theatre Company production. “You know, if you tried coffee at five different coffee shops and you just thought you didn’t like coffee? I think that’s the way a lot of people feel about Shakespeare – until they finally get a good cup of coffee, and then they go, ‘Oh, this is what it is.’ “

The cup that he and director Simon Godwin pour has runneth over for the company. Their “King Lear” – a sleek, streamlined version at the Klein Theatre, during which Lear’s psychic decline is made stunningly, transparently human – is something of a sensation: After reviews were posted, the show rang up the single biggest day of ticket sales in the organization’s 37-year history.

The success has been hugely gratifying for Page, 60, a veteran of premier roles for the company, including Iago and Coriolanus, and Godwin, 46, who became artistic director in 2019 but had to wait to put his stamp on the theater because of the pandemic.

“It really has been exhilarating to see how fantastic the response in Washington has been,” Godwin said in a recent Zoom interview with Page. “Any question about there not being the audience in Washington for major Shakespeare – there’s not the capacity, there’s not the hunger for really deep, dark, complex work: Yes, yes, yes, there is. And so that’s been wonderful.”

Godwin, who retains professional ties to London’s National Theatre, brings a seasoned British sensibility to Shakespeare in D.C., and that includes a comfort level with the text that verges on genetic. Part of what makes this modern-dress “King Lear” – whose run at the Klein has been extended three times – so viscerally exciting are the surgical cuts to the script. A process of trimming that went on for a year, conducted principally by Godwin, Page and dramaturge Drew Lichtenberg, reduced the running time to about 2½ hours. Shakespeare lovers know that the tragedy at full length can lumber on for four hours.

Putting the play on a rigorous diet is of course not a panacea. But being attuned to how much information today’s audiences need, and realizing when a river of some 400-year-old poetry spills over its banks and becomes an unmanageable flood, is hugely advantageous.

“Simon said length is not the issue,” said Page, who was born in Spokane and spent his early childhood here before his family moved to Oregon. “The issue is momentum. The issue is attention. The issue is focus. The issue is interest, excitement. ‘How do I keep them on the edge of their seat?’ Well, if the Fool says these three jokes in a row, they might be very clever jokes, but the audience is no longer leaning forward. Those are the kinds of things that Simon is alert to in a way that I haven’t really experienced.”

The actor and the director met about five years ago at the National in London, where Page was playing Hades in the musical “Hadestown,” a role for which he would later receive a Tony nomination. After the pandemic shutdowns, Page approached Godwin with a proposal for a one-man show, “All the Devils Are Here,” a performance piece anthologizing a Shakespearean basket of bad apples, such as Malvolio, Claudius and Lady Macbeth. “I read the script and thought it was brilliant, and I suggested that we film it,” Godwin said.

The show ended up being filmed, under the direction of Alan Paul, and was also performed during the pandemic – in the private homes of company supporters.

“We did a few sort of one-offs as a way of keeping people engaged, some of our most important people from the Shakespeare Theatre Company, members of the Board of Trustees, donors and others,” Page said. “No more than 30 people, usually, and I would come in and just do it, no lights, no sound. Just put down a rug and a chair and do the characters.”

Some actors know instinctively how at once to internalize and externalize a big Shakespearean role, and Page has gifts – sonorous baritone, love of investigation, heroic bearing – that make him a natural for epic parts. These qualities were apparent to Godwin, too, when the idea was broached of Page playing Lear.

“Simon rang up and said: ‘Well, we ought to do something. What do you think it ought to be?’ ” Page said. “I mentioned several characters, and he said, ‘Well, what about Lear?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, wow, I hadn’t thought of that for right now.’ ” He was approaching 60 and wasn’t sure he was ready for the ravages of age that Lear embodies, as his elder daughters reject him and his mind rapidly unravels.

When opportunity knocks, though, a hungry actor answers. In other words, Page came around. “I take some comfort in the fact that many of the greatest Lears have been younger than I,” he said. “Paul Scofield was in his 40s when he played it.”

That Page’s Lear is so effective is in fact attributable in part to his vigor as the play begins. Why would a ruler so physically solid suddenly relinquish his throne and divvy up a kingdom he’s proud of? Something else must be affecting his judgment, and exploring that was one of the joys for Page. “Does he have dementia? What are the characteristics of it? And how might that play out?” he said.

“Shakespeare was such a great observer of people that he had no doubt observed precisely these behaviors in some man or woman,” the actor added. “And so we hear from the people that we trust: from Edgar, from Cordelia, from Kent, from Gloucester. We hear about the kind of man Lear was, and we hear that the behavior that he’s now exhibiting is not who he has been in the past.”

If the cast’s task involved finding these moments of illumination in the text, they’d also be presented with the Lear-like challenge of giving up some of what they loved. Which meant not being too precious about cuts.

As Page recalled: “Simon started our rehearsal by saying, ‘We’re going to have one catchphrase, one motto, one mantra, as we move forward. And it is: Hold on tightly, let go lightly.’ ”

“I’ve worked with actors who are nervous of cuts, are self-absorbed about the text: ‘Well, I’m doing this part so I can say every word,’ ” Godwin said. “And what was fantastic about Patrick was that he rigorously interrogated every single line I wanted to cut. But fundamentally Patrick understood the audience. The audience would not need the repetition of this; the audience will be excited by the excision of that. I’m proud to say, yeah, Patrick, Drew and I just went through all of it and challenged each other. And the result is something that we all feel great ownership of.”

That ownership appears to extend to those who are relishing those results.

“I have people come up to me on the street and say: ‘I was overwhelmed. This is my family. This is my father. This is my experience of life. Now I want to come back and hear more plays and want to read more plays,’ ” Page said. “When one gets to be the ambassador for that – well, that’s why we do it.”

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“King Lear,” by William Shakespeare. Directed by Simon Godwin. Through April 16 at Klein Theatre, 450 Seventh St. NW, Washington, D.C. shakespearetheatre.org.