Blending Art And Therapy

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

TITLE: SHAKESPEARE FOR MY FATHER

AUTHOR: LYNN REDGRAVE

WHERE: BROADWAY

THE BOTTOM LINE: At 50, a gifted daughter still yearns unrequitedly for the approval of her remote, now dead, genius father.

In what Lynn Redgrave recalls as a characteristic family photograph, her father Michael and sister Vanessa posed exquisitely in front while the workaday members of the family -- Lynn, her brother Corin and mother Rachel Kempson -- stood demurely behind. She doesn't come out and say so, but the grouping was painfully apt. While acting seems to be a genetic imperative for the clan (five generations have worked in the business), only Michael and Vanessa have been touched by the magical ability to make transcendence look effortless. He was among the greatest of a towering generation that included Olivier, Richardson and Gielgud; she is incomparably the finest actor, male or female, in the English-speaking world today. Lynn is a skillful, earthbound performer, at home in both classics and sitcoms, if best remembered for Weight Watchers commercials. Born to another name, she would be the mainspring of family pride. In her tribe, she is an afterthought.

This poignant situation inspired Shakespeare for My Father, a one-woman show that is original, funny, often fascinating and profoundly neurotic, a blend of art and psychotherapy. Ostensibly a tribute to her father, the piece is really a thwarted child's cri de coeur for his love and approval, melding mostly accusatory reminiscence with chunks of Shakespeare pertinent to his career, her career or their often remote private relationship. As Redgrave performs on an all but bare stage, a shadowy portrait of her father looms behind her all the time, as if to remind her of an acting ideal to which, alas, she cannot measure up.

It adds greatly to the power of the piece, presumably not in a way she would choose, that Redgrave is just good enough to underscore how far short she is of perfection. Most of her readings -- of notable soliloquies and a few scenes in which she plays multiple parts -- are earnest, better when quiet than when kinetic (no matter whom she plays, her posture and gestures look the same). The personal text is better acted, if sometimes too cute. Her impersonations range from dead-on (Maggie Smith) to unrecognizable (Olivier). There are two telling exceptions: she is stunning as both Cordelia and Hamlet, speaking of their fathers, one remote, one dead. Here art unmistakably resonates with life.