King Lear

By Robert Iles - 16th Feb 2006

I think one of the problems is that I just don't like King Lear, not the character (which I love) but the play, it always seems to me like it needs a good dose of the blue pencil to cut it down to size. Perhaps that's just that the last one I saw, many years ago, was when the RSC decided to add back in all the missing bits and I sat in Stratford, on a dreadfully hard seat, and endured a never ending first act (during the second act I sat outside and watched a re-enactment of a Viking funeral on the Avon .. as did much of the cast from the flat roof outside the dresing rooms!).

Having said that, this production did much to redeem the play for me. Played in the large warehouse space at the Oxford BMW factory this was a plainly staged production which avoided bells and whistles and just went straight for the play. Few effects, minimal prompts, modern costume and a simple stage area were the order of the day and I think this made for a very effective production. The huge depth of the acting area was used to tremendous effect for long entrances and a most enthralling "Blow winds" speech played almost at the back of the hall by a well mad Lear, alone in a white light - very effective indeed.

The only bit that didn't work was the use of the wrong weapons; don't talk of swords it you have daggers, or worse still guns!

For me, the first half was somewhat rushed, but the second half was a real revelation; great pace, sweeping changes of emotion and tight , controlled performances all round. Stephen Ley's Lear was, from the first, a somewhat 'small' king; not a great man brought down more a tired man giving up - convincing and human. Richard Cunningham, doubling as Cornwall and Oswald was excellent and provided some of the few lighter moments. Gareth Kennerley gave us an Edgar of great passion and range whilst Darren Ormandy excellently handled the often difficult doubling between Edmund and Kent. I would say that Andrew Macbean was more at home as Gloucester than Albany but then it is a better part with more to get your teeth into. Cordelia was played by Jenni Maitland with the disadvantage of some trully awful costume and she also doubled as Fool; quietly spoken and attentive but perhaps not sparky enough. Eleanor Montgomery's Goneril and Charlotte Lucas' Regan were, for me, less convincing as whilst they had got their mouths around the dialogue I simply didn't feel they'd got their minds around the characters. As always with Creation, the dialogue was spoken with an easy precision and clarity that made the audience immediately at home.

Directed by Douglas Rintoul and designed by Hayley Grindle this is a production worth seeing. It perhaps brings nothing new to the interpretation of the script or to our understanding of the play or the chracters and I didn't feel it stretched either the audience or the cast but none the less it does the play justice and turned me back on to this mot tragic of Shakespeare's plays.

Robert Iles