Stage and Cinema
- Highly Recommended
"...When it comes to repackaging Shakespeare, nothing’s off-limits. Indian director Vishal Bhardwaj’s noir-flavored trilogy (Maqbool, Omkara, Haidar [or Macbeth, Othello, and Hamlet]) turned the plays into modern crime sagas. for Twelfth Night, Robert Kauzlaric’s Lion in Illyria swapped out human characters for a zoo of speaking animals. James Ijames’ Fat Ham set Hamlet in a backyard barbecue, where a queer Black man is haunted by his father’s ghost between ribs and potato salad. I once saw Macbeth staged in an empty swimming pool, the actors completely nude and smeared in white greasepaint. (They said it was Macbeth. Your guess was as good as mine.)"
LA Splash
- Highly Recommended
"...The critically acclaimed "Redux" series returns to the Odyssey Theatre in 2025 with LEAR REDUX. Inspired by Shakespeare's "King Lear," author John Farmanesh-Bocca has crafted a creative and exciting new look at the aging monarch with a trio of problematic daughters. The New American Theatre Company of professional actors and theater artists has taken the author's concept and infused it with new life in a multimedia production which blends words, music, dance, and Jack Stehlin's magical physicality (and very bright eyes) resulting in a funny, clever, and original take on Shakespeare's "King Lear.""
Stage Scene LA
- Highly Recommended
"...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."
LA Theatrix
- Highly Recommended
"...Adding to previous "reduxes" of William Shakespeare plays like "Titus Andronicus" and "The Tempest," adaptor and director John Farmanesh-Bocca has crafted a delightfully deep "Lear Redux," retelling William Shakespeare's "King Lear" for our times."
ArtsInLA
- Highly Recommended
"...Lear Redux is smart, entertaining and emotionally resonant, a production with high ambitions that it skillfully attains."
Night Tinted Glasses
- Highly Recommended
"...So imagine my excitement at the thought of Lear Redux! The thing I perhaps most expected, paradoxically, was to be surprised. Boy was I ever startled, shocked, moved, and yes very definitely surprised on every level! In the most powerful, moving way!"
Stage Raw
- Recommended
"...While Stehlin, with his fire-crackling physicality and glowering stares, bestrides the production, other performances help lock in the irony and humor - Velez as the duplicitous nurse/Edmund and Togun as his compassionate antithesis play well in their various roles. Sealey and Danzeisen as the frustrated daughters ground the story in the real world as most of us perceive it. Gersten's captivating moment is as the blind Gloucester. Yetter, more than a puppeteer, independently reacts to the blandishments and tantrums of Lear/The Actor, coming to assume by the end the role of the scorned yet forgiving Cordelia. It's a subtly beguiling performance."
Larchmont Buzz
- Highly Recommended
"...Lear Redux is a show that would not be the success it is without its designers. There is a bed center stage, along with a fireplace with the Actor's face as Hamlet above it, some chairs, an IV bag and pill bottles. In the background is an outline with the shape of trees. During the latter half of the play, through true stage magic, the stage transforms into a 7-11."
Mostly Shakespeare
- Highly Recommended
"...Lear Redux is a touching and fascinating adaptation of what many believe to be William Shakespeare's greatest work, King Lear, set in modern times but using much of Shakespeare's text in an ingenious and imaginative way. It was adapted and directed by John Farmanesh-Bocca, who in 2016 gave us Tempest Redux (following Pericles Redux and Titus Redux). The world premiere of the play opened this weekend at Odyssey Theatre."
