KING LEAR. To 17 August.
London.
KING LEAR
by William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare’s Globe In rep to 17 August 2008.
1pm 15, 22 June, 13 July. 3, 10 August.
2pm 13, 21, 25, 27 June, 15, 17, 19, 30 July, 8, 13, 15 August.
6.30pm 22 June, 27 July, 17 August.
7.30pm 3, 12, 14, 19-20, 24, 26 June, 12, 15-16, 18, 22-24, 29 July, 1, 7, 9, 12, 14 August.
Midnight 1 August.
Audio-described 19 July.
BSL Signed 12 June.
Runs 3hr 10min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 7401 9919/020 7087 7398
www.shakespeares-globe.org
Review: Timothy Ramsden 1 June.
A strong Lear in a plain Lear.
There’s King Lear and King Lear to consider here. Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole’s production is a straightforward run-through, with little to excite regular Shakespearegoers much. But for Globe audience-members following the programme’s synopsis, or asking each other questions about the story, that’s not a bad idea.
This no-frills approach shows it’s Cordelia who starts the conflict with her sisters. Not content with telling her father why she’ll say nothing about her love for him, she goes on to criticise Goneril and Regan in open court.
Their later action is out of proportion to this slight, but so is Cordelia’s behaviour to Lear. Has she nothing to say, especially as she goes on to give a fair account of her reasoned love for him very shortly afterwards. I’ve never felt more doubt about Cordelia’s state of mind; an absolutist who seeks utter rejection as the only alternative to absolute love.
It’s thrilling to see this cosmic drama acted out on an Elizabethan stage, the references to heavens taking place on the platform’s ‘middle-earth’, the pit below and the sky-painted ceiling above to catch characters’ appeals to gods or stars. It sharpens the contrast with a bare platform where Edmund rails against the heavenly system, thundering his arguments down to the Groundlings and flinging it across to the seated observers. And Lear stands exposed, alone or with his diminished, informal train on the stormy heath (visible wind-machine and percussion creating a dreadful aural pother). There’s no need for the stripping-off so fashionable lately.
David Calder’s Lear, a bear-like figure clad in wool and cotton, suggests a forced sense of humour in a couple of early comments; things which would get laughs from his authority rather than their wit. His move towards humour is also the move towards madness, something that integrates the Fool into the play’s early action, for the Fool departs, unexplained, when Lear’s madness starts making progress. Expressed with a wide vocal range and the change from an opening where he ranges round the court to the still, sad ending, it is a strong central performance in a clear production.
King Lear: David Calder.
Goneril: Sally Bretton.
Duke of Albany: Fraser James.
Regan: Kellie Bright.
Duke of Cornwall: Peter Hamilton Dyer.
Cordelia: Jodie McNee.
Fool: Danny Lee Wynter.
Knight: Kevork Malikyan.
Earl of Kent: Paul Copley.
Earl of Gloucester: Joseph Mydell.
Edgar: Trystan Gravelle.
Edmund: Daniel Hawksford.
Old Man/Doctor: Paul Lloyd.
Curan: Kurt Egyiawan.
Oswald: Ashley Rolfe.
Kinf of France: Beru Tessema.
Duke of Burgundy: Ben Bishop.
Ballad Singer: Pamela Hay.
Bedlamites/Knights/Soldiers: Michael Jarvis, Ben Lee, Richard Marshall, Fabian Spencer, Ben Bishop, Kurt Egyiawan, Paul Lloyd, Beru Tessema.
Director: Dominin Dromgoole.
Designer: Jonathan Fensom.
Composer: Claire van Kampen.
Choreographer: Sian Williams.
Voice/Dialect: Jan Haydn Rowles.
Movement: Glynn MacDonald.
Text Work: Giles Block.
Fight director: Renny Krupinski.
Assistant director: Jessica Rae Drader.
Assistant text: Louisa FitzGerald.
2008-06-05 08:17:52