Most actors play King Lear as an imperial monarch, the better to contrast with the character’s subsequent descent into madness. But in the new production of the play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, veteran British actor Derek Jacobi (of I, Claudius fame) takes a different approach.

His Lear is a loving father in desperate need of his children’s tribute. When it’s denied him by his youngest, favorite daughter Cordelia (Pippa Bennett-Warner), he acts like a spoiled, petulant child. It makes his ensuing despair and humiliation more human and all the more heartbreaking.

His revelatory performance makes it easy to see why BAM imported this Donmar Warehouse revival when productions of this theatrical warhorse are positively ubiquitous. Indeed, there are two more arriving later this year; one courtesy of the Royal Shakespeare Company and another at the Public Theater starring Sam Waterston.

As has become standard in modern Shakespearean productions, this staging is a decidedly minimalist affair, performed on a bare stage composed of whitewashed wooden planks.

But that doesn’t stop director Michael Grandage from providing thrilling theatrical touches, most notably in the powerful storm scene in which lighting and sound effects are employed to harrowing effect.

But even then, it’s Jacobi’s unconventional acting choices that make the most impact. Rather than shouting his lines—most famously “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks”--with the customary full volume, he whispers them, making us strain to hear this fallen monarch while he’s at his most vulnerable.   

The actor is ably supported by the terrific ensemble, with particularly strong turns by Gina McKee and Justine Mitchell, chillingly low-key as the treacherous Goneril and Regan; Alec Newman, impressively villainous as the aggrieved Edmund, and Paul Jesson, heartbreakingly moving as the wronged Gloucester. Best of all is Ron Cook’s trenchant Fool who acerbically comments on the surrounding chaos.

The production admirably downplays the melodramatic bombast that afflicts so many current interpretations while restoring the play to its tragic psychological dimensions. Jacobi’s Lear is less a fallen monarch than an elderly parent desperately struggling to cope with the physical and mental infirmities accompanying old age.

BAM Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St., Brooklyn. 718-636-4100. www.bam.org.