In the recent incarnation now playing at the Folger Theatre, the Classical Theatre of Harlem has managed to inject King Lear with a sort of Bacchanalian ferocity. This is a very physical production of the Shakespearean tragedy, and the intensity serves the work well.

It also means we have moments, like when Gloucester is blinded by the treacherous Cornwall, where we actually see the villan squeeze the man’s eyeballs until they burst, squirting juices towards the audience. Oh, and as Lear descends into madness, he takes a moment to crawl across the laps of the entire fifth row of the audience, falling backwards on two patrons when he finishes.

Like we said, it gets physical. But it is a wonderful, absorbing kind of physical. This production takes many interesting turns — choreographed movements by each of the King’s daughters lend to a hell of an entrance by the glittering Lear (Andre De Shields, initially flamboyant yet commanding, and later deliciously, impossibly mad), a one-man band located on the second level of the set provides everything from melancholy melodies to rimshots. Lear’s most trusted daughter fights off attackers like a sort of Cordelia: Warrior Princess.