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Show: King Lear
Society: Royal Shakespeare Company – RSC (professional)
Venue: Barbican Theatre
Credits: William Shakespeare
Type: Sardines
Author: Chris Abbott
Performance Date: 21/11/2016
King Lear
Chris Abbott | 22 Nov 2016 10:21am
Photo: Ellie Kurttz
It was through an appropriate night of stormy rain that I made my way across the windswept wastes of the Barbican complex for the latest RSC transfer from Stratford, Gregory Doran’s production of King Lear with Anthony Sher in the title role. This was my third Lear of the year after Don Warrington’s magisterial performance in Birmingham and Timothy West’s emotionally draining take on the role at Bristol, accompanied by Stephanie Cole’s Fool; and not to mention the echoes of Lear in The Dresser, recently reviewed for Sardines.
Sher’s Lear is as commanding a performance as would be expected, in a production which is carefully thought-out, intellectually coherent and finely acted. The production is also enhanced, as was the recent RSC Dream, by a community chorus of 24, 12 of whom appear at each performance as Lear’s retinue of carousing knights. There may not be a hundred of them, as we are told in the script, but their rollicking and edgy presence adds greatly to the early scenes when Lear is an unwelcome guest of his daughters: another wonderful opportunity for amateur and aspirant actors to work with the RSC.
The production begins with a dimming of the lights leading to an expectant hush as hooded figures crouch on stage and unsettling sounds surround us, with sound design by Jonathan Ruddick and music from the ever-reliable Ilona Sekacz. Lear’s arrival is the first of several moments in which action is encased within glass boxes, a metaphor which will also remind some patrons of the similar box in the production of Cymbeline that runs in repertoire with Lear. This first entrance is very effective, with Lear carried aloft and encased in glass like a votive statue or icon. A further use of a glass box to stage the blinding of Gloucester provides a suitably horrific effect (as well as removing all risk of a further ice-cream incident as at the Old Vic production recently).
Sher’s Lear begins as an energetic and confident King, fully aware of his plans to divide his kingdom and showing no signs, apparently, of his declining wits. When the change comes, it is sudden and devastating; with his faltering cry of “I know not…” we know he is failing. The disjoint is ever more apparent when seen against a production of strong angularity and repeated use of squares for scenic elements, light patterns and the arrangement of protagonists. This is an orderly world which is being disrupted by madness – and blindness.
Metaphors of actual and metaphorical blindness abound in the play and are fully brought out in this production. David Troughton’s Gloucester is touching and heroic, his scene sitting with Lear very much justifying the programme note about the similarity with Beckett. As the Fool, Graham Turner is a more malign influence than is sometimes the case, making enemies at court whilst protected and therefore soon heading for a downfall after Lear loses his senses. Nia Gwynne is an authoritative and commanding Goneril, with Kelly Williams as a more hesitant and conflicted Regan, while Natalie Simpson as Cordelia provides a glimpse of her regal potential in the battle scenes.
In a strong and diverse cast there are no weak points. Oliver Johnstone works hard to try to make sense of Edgar, particularly in the Poor Tom scenes, enhanced here by the appearance on stage of the hovel, one of several apt uses of a riser in Niki Turner’s monumental and well-lit (Tim Mitchell) designs, with the gold stage cloth rising upwards and flapping during the storm being the only moment when design did not quite live up to the acting. The storm in Lear, however, is also within Lear as well as around him, and this was certainly the case on this occasion, with Sher’s early authority giving way to a piping voice and abject pleading when he fears his wits have deserted him. His desperate call to Poor Tom “Didst thou give all to thy daughters” was even more heart-rending as a result.
Indeed, when Lear says of Edgar “he childed as I fathered” he is identifying another theme brought out in this thoughtful production which made clearer much of the usual complexity of the narrative. And with further pronouncements like “Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind” we are reminded once again of the prescience of so many of Shakespeare’s plays for the times in which we live now.
A good (if not quite great) production then, of considerable intellectual rigour, and the acting laurels rightly belong to Anthony Sher, last seen in an RSC Lear as the Fool, and here inheriting the mantle of those many who have gone before him. Coming up fast behind him for acting honours, however, is Paapa Essiedu in a stunning portrayal of Edmund; quietly spoken, taking the audience into his confidence and making us believe in his later actions as much as his earlier ones. The group of young students behind me were agog in the interval when discussing how they could understand the Shakespearean language when he spoke it; a suitable compliment for a fine performance. This was a masterly portrayal by a young actor of which we will hope to see much more in future, and it is disappointing that his Hamlet appears not to be making the transfer to London.
- : admin
- : 21/11/2016