King Lear was a crazy experience for me.
I was honestly probably too excited to see this production and was actually disappointed when I learned it wasn’t the whole show. HA. Call me crazy. I just love the show and was so curious to see what they were going to do with it. I really think that King Lear is such a good show because of the characters that were left out, however, I think they did really well with what they worked with.
BUT I still really enjoyed it.
I was able to follow along really well actually! The whole time when they were talking I was like reciting the script in my head of what they were saying and I was so drawn in the whole time. I don’t know what happened to me by the time that Cordelia and Lear died but wow, I could not stop crying. I think it was a mix of the script and knowing THEIR story was just super powerful for me it kind of broke my heart in so many different ways.
The actors were SO impressive! I never once was like “oh I can tell they are super inexperienced”. Well that’s a lie, I thought Lear going mad could have been a little more obvious, because he goes apeshit in the script and this actor was much more calm about it. Other than that though, I thought the fool was really good, I was very drawn to them every time they were on stage. The sisters too! I think Regan was my favorite, her moment at the end where she kind lost it and was just crazy laughing was soooo powerful; she did it really well. I think Coredelia was my least favorite, she just didn’t bring a ton to the role in terms of highs and lows.
I think they captured it being a Shakespeare tragedy very well. The set was very minimal but also had a lot to do with what was happening with the characters. Like during the storm when they were moving them around for a long time read very well to me. I also LOVED when they ripped the sheets down at the end. It kind of scratched the itch of acknowledging the “nakedness” theme in the play for me. They “stripped” the set bare when the characters had really lost it. So genius.
Honestly, seeing it in a different language wasn’t that big of a difference for me. Now if I didn’t know the script as well as I do I would have been lost the whole time; but since I was familiar, I was able to have subtitles in my head haha.
I know I’m bias because I’m a nerd for King Lear but again, I really enjoyed the show and thought it was super powerful.
Theatre in London U of A 