Theater Review : Insightful, Free-Range ‘King Lear’ at Met : Robert Ellenstein captures all of the vanity, treachery and descent into madness of the Shakespearean king.

All it takes is a quick, well-timed wink to the audience in the opening scene of “King Lear” for Robert Ellenstein to nail the aging monarch’s foolish vanity, sowing the seeds for Shakespeare’s blackest tragedy. Announcing his “retirement” and consequent subdivision of his kingdom among his three daughters (dependent on their proclamation of love for him), Ellenstein’s Lear practically shivers with self-satisfaction at the shameless ritual of flattery he’s set up. He has no intention of relinquishing the privileges of rulership, only the responsibilities.

Despite some resource limitations, a handsome Los Angeles Repertory Company revival delivers an insightful production that achieves grandeur on the shoulders of its gripping central performance. A few dropped lines notwithstanding, Ellenstein renders Lear’s dark journey with admirable clarity at each step--the stripping away of the king’s false persona, his descent into rage and madness and finally the tentative birth of an authentic individual self, too little, too late.

An exceptionally strong Patrick Emerson brings affecting pathos to the noble Edgar’s wrongful banishment and harrowing conviction to his feigned madness. As his too-easily duped father, Gloucester, William H. Basset also capably navigates the tragic subplot mirroring the house of Lear.

As Gloucester’s treacherous bastard son, Edmund, Rob Daly is suitably glowering and hateful, but not as adept with the language. His perfunctory reading of Edmund’s diatribe against all that is “legitimate” is a missed opportunity to explicitly link his illegitimate origins to his villainy.

Martina Paz’s Cordelia isn’t quite the otherworldly sanctified martyr suggested by the text, but projects a true heart nonetheless. John Herzog is a credibly loyal Kent and John E. Farrell’s Fool gives Lear the tough love scolding he richly deserves.

In general, director Peter Ellenstein’s well-paced staging honors the all-important language of “Lear,” especially in giving proper weight to the play’s most thematically resonant words--”nature,” “nothing” and the progression of Lear’s personal pronouns from a hollow royal “we” to a humbler, but more discerning “I.”

BE THERE

“King Lear,” Met Theatre, 1089 N. Oxford St., Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Oct. 3. $18-$20. (323) 782-5565. Running time: 3 hours, 15 minutes.