A stage-and-screen legend battles dementia and a couple of greedy offspring remarkably similar to those of a legendary Shakespearean monarch in Lear Redux, the audacious, imaginative latest from adapter-director-choreographer John Farmanesh-Bocca, now getting a stunning World Premiere at the Odyssey.

The snowy-bearded, wild-maned actor in question, whom l’ll call Actor Lear (Jack Stehlin), has probably lost count of how many birthdays he’s celebrated, but this one must be a special one given the presence of his two adult daughters (Jade Sealey as the elder, whom I’ll dub Goneril and Eve Danzeisen as the younger, aka Regan) and his brother (Dennis Gersten, standing in for both Kent and Gloucester), who’ve arrived not with presents but with a power of attorney that needs Actor Lear’s signature in order to go into effect.

Actor Lear’s youngest daughter Cordelia is unfortunately no longer among the living, the victim of a drug overdose, though on the plus side her place has been taken by an adorable mutt (a German Shepherd-Collie mix?) also named Cordelia and brought to life on the Odyssey stage by Emily Yetter voicing and manipulating puppet designer Eli Presser’s lifelike, life-size pooch.

A pair of male nurses (Ahkei Togun as Day Nurse Edgar and Andres Velez as Night Nurse Edmund) complete the cast, and like their Shakespearean namesakes, the duo are as different as night and day where evil and good are concerned.

The only impediment to persuading Actor Lear to sign the aforementioned document is the ancient thespian’s insistence that his daughters, his brother, and his caretakers join him in reenacting key scenes from King Lear, and lo and behold we’ve segued from contemporary dialog to Shakespearean verse, the first but far from the last time Farmanesh-Bocca’s ingenious adaptation will zigzag back and forth between reality and fantasy, though because of Actor Lear’s dementia, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell one from the other.

Along the way, Farmanesh-Bocca has the entire cast breaking into choreographed dance moves set to assorted standards and pop hits, flights of fantasy that will come as a surprise only to those unfamiliar with such previous Not Man Apart hits as Tempest Redux and Titus Redux.

Oh, and there’s a videotaped “60 Minutes” retrospective on Actor Lear’s career (including Greatest Hits clips and daughter interviews) that’s a dead ringer for the real CBS thing.

 It’s mind-blowing stuff, and even more dazzlingly so when the scene changes to a local convenience store where Actor Lear and his two nurses find themselves shirtless and battling a raging storm alongside a blinded Gloucester just as their Shakespearean counterparts did in Act IV of the Bard’s original play.

Audiences familiar with King Lear will reap the greatest rewards from Lear Redux (a quick perusal of the program’s convenient synopsis proves a helpful refresher course), though it’s hardly necessary to be a Shakespeare scholar to be blown away by the stage magic Farmanesh-Bocca, his sensational cast, and a gifted team of designers make on the Odyssey Theatre stage.

Stehlin gives a raging furnace of a performance as a man driven mad by a combination of old age and a couple of greedy, ungrateful daughters.

Danzeisen and Sealey sizzle with long-held resentments fueled by a lust for both revenge and the hot night nurse whom charismatic newcomer Velez brings to crafty, seductive life.

Togun and Gersten deliver powerhouse supporting turns as the play’s two relative good guys, and triple-threat actress-dancer-puppeteer Yetter makes for the most endearing of canine daughter replacements.

Mark Guirguis has designed a massive master bedroom set festooned with both memorabilia and meds (Jenine MacDonald is properties designer) and dominated by a humongous double bed that doubles as something entirely different when turned around to face upstage.

Add to this Denise Blasor’s pitch-perfect array of contemporary costumes dramatically lit by Bosco Flanagan and Farmanesh-Bocca’s sound design mix of storm effects and danceable hits, and you’ve got a production that’s as eye-and-ear-catching as any genius creator could hope for.

Lear Redux is a co-production of Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, The New American Theatre and Not Man Apart–Physical Theatre Ensemble, and produced for the Odyssey Theatre by Beth Hogan and for The New American Theatre by Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin. Jenny Nwene is stage manager. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

I’ve loved John Farmanesh-Bocca’s work since his Titus Redux visited the Kirk Douglas Theater way back in 2010, and Lear Redux makes it abundantly clear why I remain one of his biggest fans. You won’t experience a more thrilling ninety-minutes of live theater at its wildest and most wondrous than this.

Odyssey Theatre, 2055 South Sepulveda Boulevard, Los Angeles. Through July 13. Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00. Sundays at 2:00. Also Wednesdays June 11 and 25 at 8:00. No performance July 4.
www.OdysseyTheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
May 31, 2025
Photos: John Dlugolecki Photography

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

Tags: John Farmanesh-Bocca, Los Angeles Theater Review, Not Man Apart—Physical Theatre Ensemble, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, The New American Theatre