King Lear

Play (1606)
by William Shakespeare

With Gwendolen Chatfield (Goneril/Curan), Bethan Cullinane (Cordelia/Fool), Joseph Marcell (King Lear), Alex Mugnaioni (Edgar/Duke of Cornwall/Duke of Burgundy), Bill Nash (Earl of Kent), Daniel Pirrie (Edmund/Oswald/King of France), Shanaya Rafaat (Regan), John Stahl (Ear of Gloucester/Duke of Albany/Doctor)

Poor King Lear is just not all that up to dealing with his estate and his children. Two of them fawn all over him, trying to get the best deal possible. Cordelia, the youngest and the only one with integrity, refuses to pander, for which she pays a serious price. The two sleazettes manipulate their ways into power and tragedy, and finally Lear, after suffering a psychotic break, begins to sort the wheat from the chaff.

This lively and energetic production is played by eight actors doubling and tripling roles, mostly to good effect, but sometimes – especially in the first half – a bit confusingly. Once I got out the cast list and begin to figure out who was who things began to fall into place. The second half, when things were already pretty clear, was extremely effective. Lear’s final moments held the audience breathless. It was a theatrical moment to remember.

Joseph Marcell as Lear is, at the outset, ferocious and bombastic, unable to stop screaming. It’s an energetic take on the role that, during that stretch, might seem monotonously brash, but when the second half comes and Marcell gets to show Lear’s nutty stuff and his desperate and mourning self, the dimensionality of the portrayal really comes into relief. In the end, he is a powerful and compelling Lear.

Bethan Cullinane, who plays both Cordelia and the Fool, is surreptitiously fabulous in both roles. She has a simplicity to her style which works well both for the honesty of Cordelia and for the straightforward prodding of The Fool. It is a great idea to put those roles together for one actor – it makes a tremendous amount of narrative sense, and, in the hands of Cullinane, it is a wonderful pairing.

Alex Mugnaioni, who shows up as Edgar and the Dukes of Cornwall and Burgundy, changes his disposition so fast and furiously it is quite something. One moment imperious as the Duke of Cornwall, another moment naked, smudged and seemingly off his rocker as Poor Tom, he carries it all off with articulate flair.

There is a lot of great music and dancing in the show. At various intervals, a pair of actors shows up at the side of the stage with a small bellows organ and a flute or guitar to offer an interlude. The wild singing and dancing, when they come, are wonderfully executed. At the very end, after the deep, movingly silent tragedies have unfolded, the whole troupe breaks into song and dance, reminding us that they are, after all, just a group of players. It’s as penetrating a moment as is the tragic finale, making us realize, in a very Shakespearean way, how ephemeral our theatrical experience has been, and how rewarding.

– BADMan