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Philip Whitchurch as the blinded Gloucester with Don Warrington as the mentally disintegrating Lear. Pictures: Jonathan Keenan King Lear
Birmingham Rep
*** LEAR is regarded as Shakespeare’s
greatest tragedy, a tale of power, politics and betrayal, with perhaps
the greatest treachery of all, children plotting against fathers and
siblings. It has plenty of villains to outnumber the heroes, heroes who are always fighting a losing battle to prevent the inevitable unhappy and death strewn ending We open with
So he proposes to break Britain into three parts,
one for each of his three daughters, the largest, and richest, for
whichever offspring professes to love him the most. Goneril, the eldest (Rakie Ayola) and Regan (Debbie Corley) soft soap the old man with sycophantic greeting card flattery, while Cordelia, the youngest (Pepter Lunkuse) is more honest declaring there is nothing to which to compare her great love. Wrong answer, pet. Never were there such devoted sisters, Goneril, played by Rakie Ayola and Regan, played by Debbie Korley Lear, enraged by her lack of over the top
adulation, throws a regal wobbly and divides her share between her older
sisters and banishes her – along with the Earl of Kent (Wil Johnson) who
tries to defend her, thus setting in motion a train of events that we
know is not going to end well some three hours or so down the line. Ayola and Corley are equally unlikable as the
self-centred and, we discover, rather adulterous sisters – Shakespeare
ensuring their characters were sufficiently blackened to deter any
sympathy. Their husbands are a different breed though.
Regan’s spouse, the Duke of Cornwall, (Norman Bowman) is a cruel,
scheming would be despot while Goneril’s Duke of Albany (Mark Springer),
turns out to be a noble, honest hero, although one with little left to
be heroic about as the body count mounts at the ed. That’s Lear’s lot to think about but there is
also the Earl of Gloucester, superbly played by Philip Whitchurch, loyal
to Lear which is to be his downfall. He is betrayed by his illegitimate
son Edmund, a nicely sinister and evil performance from Fraser Ayres,
who plots against his father and legitimate half-brother Edgar. Edgar, a clever performance from Alfred Enoch,
ends up disguising himself as the local madman Tom after being betrayed
by sneaky brother Edmund and declared an outlaw, while Gloucester has
his eyes ripped out by Cornwall – told you he was hardly a friendly cove
- in a realistic portrayal with eyeballs flying around the stage which
was a bit gory for some by the gasps and averted eyes in the audience.
His crime? Treason, set up, as you might have guessed, by loving bastard
son Edmund. And all the time Lear is slowly disintegrating,
descending into madness and perhaps this is where there is an issue. Don
Warrington’s portrayal of the king as reality and sanity start to desert
him is powerful stuff and at the end when his kingdom is in tat But it is as the powerful Lear, the authority
figure in control where perhaps Warrington’s contrast with the
distraught, distressed old man is not as great as it might be, which
means the descent is not as steep nor as marked as it could have been.
To be fair the acoustics at Birmingham Rep are
not the best and are certainly no friend of Shakespeare which relies on
words and the nuances of language to tell its tale – theatre acoustical
design has moved on a pace since the Rep moved into its new home in
1971, witness the new RSC theatre at Stratford where you can literally
hear a pin drop, or even the Rep’s next door neighbour, Symphony Hall. Much dialogue and thus much drama and emotion,
was lost along with some of the majesty of one of the great tragedies of
the English language. Tragedy or not there are lighter moments though
with Miltos Yerolemou excelling as Lear’s Fool, squeezing out all the
laughs with an excellent, comic’s timing, while Thomas Coombes provided
more light relief as Oswald, Goneril’s steward, with a nice line in
facial expressions and telling gestures
Signe Beckmann’s simple imposing set of Six, huge
stone columns surrounding three uneven rings is masterful, filling the
stage as hall or heath, aided by a dramatic and superb lighting design
from Johanna Town. The two combine to create widely different scenes in
an instant and full marks to the dramatic storm scene with real, pouring
rain leaving the centre circle awash amid realistic thunder and
lightning. Director Michael Buffong keeps scenes moving
without a break and it is all there, the angst, the tragedy, the
betrayal, the duplicity and the descent of a once great leader into
madness – all that was missing was the spark to lift it from worthy to
wonderful. To 28-05-16 Roger Clarke 24-05-16
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Lear
as the King of Britain, strong, forceful commanding, but growing old. He
is a man still in control, still wielding all the power, but tiring of
ruling, weary of kingship.
ters
and his family no more, you start to feel for him as both a King whose
kingdom is ruins and as a father betrayed by those who said they loved
him and who in turned betrayed the daughter who really did adore him.