‘King Levine’ Turns Tragedy of Lear Into Adept Parody

Comedy often arises out of the juxtaposition of seemingly disparate elements. “King Levine,” at the Odyssey Theatre, works that way.

Playwright Richard Krevolin not only updated the awful and ancient tale of King Lear to contemporary New Haven, but he also injected it with large doses of Borscht Belt shtick, sheared the original’s truly bleak parts and engineered a conventionally happy ending.

Blessed with a raucous title performance by Sammy Shore and a versatile turn by gifted Bari Hochwald as all three of the king’s daughters, “King Levine” harvests plenty of laughs. These two are the only actors onstage--Krevolin dropped the rest of Shakespeare’s characters.

Krevolin’s 77-year-old Levine is a big-time bialy entrepreneur, whose frozen baked goods are sold even in the most goyish of neighborhoods. He proudly employs his oldest daughter Rikki, a buttoned-down executive whose business-school jargon is very amusing. His middle daughter Bobbi is a parody of flighty femininity, a divorced dilettante who’s always involved in some new enthusiasm and often passes the bills on to Daddy. Finally, youngest daughter Jami is a passionate lesbian whose son (from a sperm donor) is about to become a bar mitzvah boy.

Levine wants to give each daughter a share of the company, as long as they express the proper gratitude--a pose that is beyond the ability of Jami. But almost as soon as Levine starts parceling out the bialy shares, he becomes embroiled in trouble. It seems his brief and frustrating dalliance with the wrong employee has led to a sexual harassment suit. Rikki and the lawyers conclude that the only way to salvage the company is for Levine to cop to a plea of “senile dementia,” followed by a stay in an old-folks home that the resentful Levine dubs “an old Jew jail.”

Shore, best-known as the co-founder of the Comedy Store, shucks any pretense at subtlety and heaves himself into the manic, irascible personality of King Levine. His mastery of the lines wasn’t absolute on opening night, but as a stand-up comic, Shore knows how to adapt to circumstances. He gives a remarkably physical performance, perfectly capped by a couple of amazing toupees and a few moments when he successfully forgoes the laughs in favor of genuine pathos.

Hochwald’s shifts among the sisters are equally formidable. Deeply drawn characters these women are not, but Hochwald performs them so adeptly that it’s a tour de force all the same. Joe Bologna directed with an alert ear for Krevolin’s funnier lines.

The last few minutes could use a rewrite. Jami shifts gears awfully fast and then appears to assist Levine’s comeback in a way that seems unlikely. Still, “King Levine” is a funny and satisfying blend of lowbrow humor and highbrow allusions.

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* “King Levine,” Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Ends April 4. $18.50-$22.50. (310) 477-2055. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes (includes a 40-minute delay in starting on opening night).