The RSC's
production of King Lear was a production that closely paid heed to the
play as Shakespeare wrote it (and indeed, probably envisioned it on
stage). This was a very 'central' King Lear, and what emerged was a
clear domestic drama about a "foolish, fond old man" and his
three daughters. As conceived by director Trevor Nunn, the simple heart
of the drama beats here on this very human scale, particularly with
the very human portrayals of Goneril and Regan – plausibly vain,
conniving, jealous and not always unreasonable - not at all the personifications
of ingratitude and evil they can often be.
As Lear, Ian McKellen does, of course, chart the journey of the king
from being a spoilt old man to one who grows to compassion and love
and who finally understands the truth about human nature, but this Lear
is also one that sits comfortably within the domestic drama that Nunn
has framed. Within this framework, it is harder to draw out the grandeur
and the larger metaphysical issues about the human condition that Shakespeare's
text allows - a metaphorical storm scene in which we are struck by how
much we are "like flies to wanton boys" for example, is clearly
much less possible. No, what we do see in the pivotal act three is an
irascible and childish old man who rushes out into an impending storm
in a pique at his treatment by his daughters, who suffers at the hands
of the elements and, yes, who evokes a certain amount of pity from us,
such as we would most certainly feel at seeing any 80-year-old out on
the heath on a stormy night by himself. Within this framework it is
also impossible to see anything more in Gloucester's blinding
than an act of mindless meanness by a couple of petty tyrants.
Mindful of the text, Nunn successfully delineates the central dramatic
arc that sees Goneril and Regan's machinations as the flint that gradually
sparks Lear's descent into madness and that drives him out into the
storm (not a trivial achievement when it is not uncommon for directors
to miss basic cause-and-effect arcs in a text). At the same time, Nunn
never loses sight of the little felicitous comic moments which are there
in the text but which could easily be brushed aside by directors focused
on more high-minded dramatic purposes.
This is, of course, not the only way of doing King Lear, but
a perfectly legitimate way, especially if we return to re-read the text
afresh (as I did after watching the performance) and strip away the
centuries of accreted commentaries about what the "larger meaning"
of King Lear supposedly is.
In Trevor Nunn's conception then, although we may miss the terror and
pity of a great tragedy, there is also much to admire. Among this is
of course McKellen's Lear - a willful, forceful king, alive to every
word of Shakespeare's text and able to find new and credible ways of
delivering what are by now familiar lines. There may be more sympathetic
and vulnerable Lears, but McKellen's Lear is certainly regal and never
ridiculous. Equally fresh and inventive in their portrayals are Frances
Barber as Goneril, Monica Dolan as Regan and Sylvester McCoy as the
Fool. The rest of the cast did not deliver performances of quite the
same calibre, with the major disappointments being William Gaunt, a
strangely uninvolved and uninvolving Gloucester whose blinding and subsequent
suffering passes for almost nothing, and Romola Garai, a Cordelia who
(despite her tear-stained voice) fails to rise to her moving utterances
at the end and so blunts what should have been some of the most moving
moments in all Shakespeare.
Christopher Oram's set design, with its somewhat clichéd
allusions to all the world being a stage, could have contributed more
to the production but allowed only a large and flat playing space which
afforded the actors neither nooks for intimacy nor levels for their
politicking. |
"McKellen's Lear is a willful, forceful king, alive to every word
of Shakespeare's text and able to find new and credible ways of delivering
what are by now familiar lines"
Credits
Director: Trevor Nunn
Designer: Christopher Oram
Lighting Designer: Neil Austin
Composer: Steven Edis
Sound Designer: Fergus O'Hare
Fights Director: Malcolm Ranson
Musicians: Adam Cross, Steve Walton, John Gibson, Jeff
Moore
Cast: Ian McKellen, Frances Barber, Monica Dolan,
Romola Garai, Julian Harries, Guy Williams, Ben Addis,
Peter Hinton, Jonathan Hyde, William Gaunt, Ben
Meyjes, Philip Winchester, Sylvester McCoy, John
Heffernan, Seymour Matthews, David Weston, Adam Booth,
Richard Goulding, Zoe Boyle, Russell Byrne, Melanie
Jessop, Richard Goulding, Gerald Kyd and Naomi Capron
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