Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – A pair of Shakespeare tragedies arise this winter: KING LEAR at La MaMa and THE TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS at TFANA

• By drediman
• February 19, 2026
• No Comments

This winter, a pair of Off-Broadway productions of meaty Shakespeare tragedies have arisen in robust, full-bodied manner. As per usual, read on for my thoughts on these revivals — one far more successful than the other.

KING LEAR
Compagnia de’ Colombari / La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
Closed

After my scheduled performance was canceled due to this winter’s massive snow storm, I was lucky enough to be able to ultimately to catch the final performance of Karin Coonrod’s conceptually abstract and lucidly acted production of King Lear (RECOMMENDED) at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in the East Village. The central conceit of the auteur director’s vision is to have ten diverse players portray (at least initially) the troubled title role — as well as the play’s other characters — thereby effectively manifesting the complexities of the flailing monarch’s disintegrating mental state. As his madness and feebleness start to take over, an increasingly smaller pool of actors are tasked to play Lear, suggesting the extent to which his psyche has been compromised. Indeed, this kind of theatrical deconstruction speaks volumes to the psychological nuances of the Bard’s underlying text. That being said, I wish Coonrod had gone in more aggressively with her scalpel, perhaps even rendering the piece completely as an internal monologue, without the distraction of the occasionally heavy-handed exchanges between other characters. That being said, Coonrod’s refreshingly communal and democratic staging viscerally immerse audiences into Lear’s inner turmoil. It’s also a masterful example of ensemble-driven theatrical storytelling. Making ingenuous use of the entirety of the expansive Ellen Stewart Theatre — including locations where audience members are seated (e.g., the first few rows towards the center may not necessarily be the best seats in the house) — the production compellingly invites us to be first hand witnesses to Lear’s harrowing fall from grace.

THE TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS
Theatre for a New Audience
Through March 1

Then over at at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood, I also had the opportunity to take in Theatre for a New Audience’ muscular if emotionally flatfooted production of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Coriolanus (SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED). Although the play’s political musings ring especially urgent in today’s climate, I found director Ash K. Tata’s decision to place the work in a high surveillance, media saturated government state (set somewhere in the near future) — complete with large screens that overhanging the central physical action of the play upon which mind-numbing footage is relentlessly projected (the video projection design is credited to Lisa Renkel and POSSIBLE) — to be a distraction from the playwright’s thoughts regarding the extent to which government officials’ political dealings must appease the will of the citizens who are effectively in power. If anything, the overarching focus and depictions of media give the proceedings a video game quality that squashes Shakespare’s vividly counterbalancing debates down to two dimensions. For the most part, the production is competently acted and easy to follow, particularly McKinley Belcher III’s appropriately authoritative performance in the title role, a war hero who refuses to bend to the will of the people he has been tasked to govern, as well as Roslyn Ruff’s fierce and steely turn as the general’s equally stubborn mother (I guess the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree!). Suffering most from the treatment and coming off most like a video game character, however, is Mickey Sumner’s aggressive but skin-deep performance as Aufidius, Coriolanus’s longtime on-again/off-again wartime adversary from a neighboring land.