THIS `KING LEAR' DOESN'T EARN ITS TITLE.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

There are plenty of theater companies -- some in our own backyard -- that routinely find a way of making the works of William Shakespeare look vibrant, alive, relevant and downright easy.

And then there are those who make the Bard look very, very hard: as in hard to perform and hard to watch. Tier 4 Company's debut production of ``King Lear'' falls squarely and mystifyingly into this latter category. This, despite a director and company who are anything but lightweight and who -- since this project began its journey -- have talked the best game in town.

Well, Shakespeare may indeed be as basic, unintimidating and American-actor-friendly as director Patsy Rodenburg, producer Lisa Robertson and the Tier 4 ensemble would have us believe. It also has to be entertaining, but what's on display at the Electric Lodge is a production that feels wayward, plodding, pointless and -- at least on opening night -- under-rehearsed.

Add to the above a freezing theater with awful sight lines, and by intermission (some two hours in), you may find yourself envying the King of France, who appears in the first scene to marry spurned Cordelia and then gets to take the rest of the evening off.

All of which is quite a pity since the Lear in question isn't half bad. He's played by Robert Mandan, the onetime ``Soap'' star and frequent Ray Cooney player whose interpretation of Lear in Tier 4 workshops supposedly inspired the creation of the company and this very production.

Fair enough. You don't do ``Lear'' without a Lear, and Mandan's work is a largely watchable blend of regality, despair and the violent mood swings that only this monarch can get away with. When Mandan's Lear is howling, raging, cursing or despairing, for the most part, we're right there with him.

The same is largely true of Lawrence Pressman's slightly dandified Earl of Gloucester, the character who has to actually lose his eyes in order to see which of his two sons (Patrick Muldoon and Omar Metwally) is pure and which one treacherous. Pressman, a member of the Antaeus company and a seasoned classical actor, figures to make one honey of a Lear himself one day.

From those two patriarchs, the work falls off considerably. Between impenetrable accents (most notably Timothy V. Murphy's Kent), blown or stepped-on lines (name your player), over-emoting (see last note), you find yourself regularly yanked out of the action of the play to wonder, ``What's with that choice.''

Even Diane Venora, a veteran of the Public Theatre and several Shakespeare films, is doing such an extreme Buster Keaton-esque series of mugging and pratfalls as Lear's Fool that her truth-speaking jester is less at risk of getting hanged than of getting gonged.

Shakespeare has indeed written an entire play full of richly drawn characters, and perhaps Rodenburg is so determined to let every one of them locate every single character nuance -- real or imagined -- that no impulse is squelched.

That makes for a lot of strange line readings and bodies flung around that bare little stretch of blackbox (no set designer is identified). Homeless, crownless daughterless Lear may have it bad. But in the Tier 4 go-round, the audience has it even worse.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

KING LEAR - One and one half stars

Where: Electric Lodge, 1416 Electric Ave., Venice.

When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Sept. 3

Tickets: $27. [phone] or visit www.tier4company.com.

In a nutshell: New company with plenty of talent produces a huge misfire.

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Photo:

Robert Mandan as the title character and Mili Avital as Cordelia in a scene from the Tier 4 Company production of ``King Lear,'' on stage at the Electric Lodge through Sept. 3.