The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: Love You More
By Acton
This has to be a mistake. Entering Love You More (writer Nikhil Mahapatra, director N // Nicky Maggio) at The Tank, we’re handed a Playbill… for Glenda Jackson’s 2019 King Lear. But it turns out that’s just the cover, and just the first of several off-kilter surprises packed into this inventive and precisely acted play.
A father and his two daughters sit around a kitchen table—well, half of one. The table and its contents have been sliced down the center, the rest dashed against the back wall in Aoshuang Zhang’s striking visual design. And although they sit closely on the small stage, the three couldn’t be more dislocated. Facing opposite directions, Lear (a soulful Omar Rahim) calls out to Cordelia (Jasmine Sharma, guarded and meticulous), presumably over the phone. She’s away at college and seems determined to stay as far away as possible, physically and emotionally. As he tries again and again to connect with his beloved Cordelia, his other, less loved daughter, Goneril (Mahima Saigal, with perfect comic timing) glares out from the back of the room, barely keeping a lid on her scorn. Of course, she’s left caring for him once Lear grows old and sick, still pining for his perfect Cordelia. And let’s not get started with the third daughter (we can’t—there’s no budget for a third daughter, it’s later explained).
The story advances in a series of conversations and moments of clarity for the characters, broken by shocks of electricity (lighting design Adrian Yuen, sound design Joshua Dumas) that jolt us moments, days, or years ahead (and sometimes, I think, into the past). Mahapatra’s script is adept at depicting the ways that being apart from someone for a long time can freeze that relationship in time, for better or for worse. The performances are fine-tuned, from Sharma and Saigal’s familial bickering, to Rahim’s expressive yearning. Saigal is a natural comedian, muttering devastating put-downs as she slams her father’s Ensure bottles into the trash.
I admit that the Impressionistic last scenes of this briskly timed play, in which personas seem to fracture and reconstitute into actors putting on a production of King Lear, have left me with more pondering to do. But thanks to the talent and intelligence behind Love You More, it’s a pleasure to zap myself back and ponder the mystery.
