I have advised producers of Shakespeare that Shakespeare does not much require their editorial assistance or innovation, and that the wisest thing for the truly ambitious producer to do is to stay out of the way. The new production of King Lear under the direction of Michael Grandage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music takes that to heart, offering a case study in magnificent minimalism: Other than a few necessary bits—a map of the partitioned kingdom, a couple of swords and personal effects—there is hardly a prop to be found on the stage, which contains not a single piece of scenery. The action unfolds against a background of winter-white birch, while the characters are clad in black robes of clerical cut. Minimalism can be, perversely enough, showy—I have in mind the New York Theatre Workshop’s production of The Little Foxes—but here we have minimalism of the other sort: the art of doing just enough.

The cast is led by the celebrated British actor Derek Jacobi in the role of Lear, and he is good enough, if a bit too effeminate in the play’s second half: Lear’s senescence is emasculating, to be sure, but Mr. Jacobi occasionally hits notes that only dogs can hear. Unlike a number of recent shop-shelf Shakespeare leads, Mr. Jacobi does not subsume the other actors. In fact, the play might have been titled The Glorious Bastard Edmund, with Alec Newman making a powerful case for hybrid vigor, bringing so much