“Lee is one of the most vital, rewarding playwrights to arrive on the scene in the past decade.”—Time Out New York
“Lee uses King Lear and some beautifully unconventional additions to flesh out Shakespeare’s themes of loneliness, mortality, and filial responsibility in gratifying and moving depth.” —Variety
February 5—March 13, 2016
The West Coast premiere of this widely-acclaimed recent text. In Lear, experimental playwright Young Jean Lee’s self-described “inaccurate distortion” of the classic, she banishes the title monarch and most of the other male characters to the wings and focuses instead on the younger generation: Lear’s three daughters and Gloucester’s two sons. The absurdist, meta results are irreverent, grotesque, and morally harrowing.
Fifth Sunday Q&A March 6 [PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGE]:
After the Sunday, March 6 (not Feb. 28, as previously announced) matinee, please join us for an informal discussion with the cast and creative staff of City Garage’s production of Young Jean Lee’s Lear.
LOS ANGELES TIMES REVIEW
In the Los Angeles Times David C. Nichols praised Young Jean Lee’s Lear at City Garage:
“Director Frédérique Michel treats the intermissionless proceedings as a hybrid of Renaissance masque, absurdist romp and college counseling session, and her fine-tuned cast follows suit. Posing and pouncing around producer Charles A. Duncombe’s elemental sets and lighting in Josephine Poinsot’s winking costumes, the group sustains itself through to the post-Pirandello climax, which breaks both tone and third wall. Devotees of its author and this cutting-edge company should flock.”
Read the full LA Times review here!
This project is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the Santa Monica Arts Commission.
