“PLAYHOUSE” by Richard Bausch (Knopf, 352 pages, $29).
In Richard Bausch’s latest novel, “Playhouse,” a Memphis theater company stages a performance of “King Lear” to celebrate a high-profile relaunch. As rehearsals begin, celebrities sign on, and with the revitalized Globe Theater positioned as a beacon of cultured Memphis, the characters struggle to find harmony, let alone pull off the play.
A masterful, lyrical satire, “Playhouse” tells the story of the ensemble through the lens of three primary characters. Thaddeus Deerforth, general manager of the Shakespeare Theater of Memphis, must keep the production on track, the egos in check and sort out a marriage akin to “two strangers in an airport.” Longtime company actor Claudette Bradley is determined to care for her elderly father while keeping distance from her troubled ex-husband. Local celebrity Malcolm Ruark hopes his performance in Lear will blot out a well-publicized scandal.
The company is graced by a high-profile visiting director, whose self-indulgent adaptation is matched by his salacious sexual advances. With the casting of a Netflix star, the production soon churns like the Mississippi River current.
In many ways, “Playhouse” is a send-up of culture-making itself. To Thaddeus and his crew, the looming deadline is as grave as a terminal disease. Offstage, they must kowtow to the peculiar set of donors who control the Shakespeare Theater’s fate. And then there are those pre-existing complications, such as the headlines that dog Ruark over a bust for drunk driving … with his alluring, underaged niece in the car. Shadowing all is the allegiance to Lear and how to stay faithful to the text.