It was refreshing to see a relatively conventional production of King Lear at the Gate, not the novel contemporary take, often trying too hard. Director Roxana Gilbert also avoided the United Nations casts that have become the norm (leading to speculation such as why Ophelia is from a different race to Laertes etc.). Ok, Kent was played by a woman, as was another male character (Oswald), but gender fluidity was common in Shakespeare’s time, so we’ll allow that. The costumes too were not trendily modern but rather an essay in what ancient Britons may have worn. The set design was abstract and striking, falling somewhere between Richard Gorman and Patrick Scott – but with strong rich reds and blacks predominating. Conleth Hill as Lear was mighty fine, as was Stuart Graham as Gloucester – mind you their similar white-beardedness could cause confusion for the ill attentive. The juicy parts of Goneril (Jolly Abraham) and Regan (Evan Gaffney) were also played with relish, and as usual goody-two-shoes Cordelia was left with the blander lines. If there was a weakness in a fine entertaining version, it was in the character of Edmond. The actor just seemed to lack the presence and substance of this prime mover of evil intent. Not bad in the part – just not quite right. The gouging out of Gloucester’s eyes (more pulling than gouging in this case), led to some incidental entertainment. When Edmond did the dreadful deed, he threw the removed eyes one by one on to the stage floor where they made a convincing plop. At the second plop, two middle-aged women sitting a few rows in front of me, of the dress-up-for-the-theatre type, rose from their seats and marched out righteously – their body language suggesting that they were much affronted. They clearly hadn’t done their prep – it’s one of the best-known scenes in the play. King Lear is, as we know, a tragedy, but I wonder if some of the language has become risible in a modern context. A few times the audience burst into laughter at what seemed to me to be inappropriate times. (I did feel a repressed urge to chortle occasionally myself) One particular instance was when Edmond lay dying as he uttered the deathless words:
“Yet Edmund was belov’d.
The one the other poisoned for my sake,
And after slew herself.”
Cue an outburst of guffaws from the audience. Maybe it was the way the actor delivered the lines, bathos is pathos gone wrong.
Overall a fine night out at the theatre – all three hours of it (less intermission).
