(Chris Jones’s review appeared in the Chicago Tribune, 9/18.)
Barbara Gaines' raw and visceral Chicago Shakespeare Theater production of "King Lear" begins, poorly, with the titular monarch, he who hath ever but slenderly known himself, fast-forwarding through the songs of Frank Sinatra.
Smashing his plastic remotes on the ground in annoyance, Larry Yando's Lear rushes past "That's Life," "My Way" and "Witchcraft," although all three of those titles have a Shakespearean ethos, and settles on "I've Got the World on a String," which is a cheap choice because those who actually need to believe they have the world on a string, like Lear, so rarely expose themselves with so obvious a lyrical preference.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/reviews/ct-king-lear-review-column.html