The hyped-up performance of Sir Ian McKellen as Shakespeare’s King Lear came to fruition at Royce Hall and surpassed the heavy expectations passed on it.
Although director Sir Trevor Nunn’s production was traditional, it captured the best parts of the Bard’s lengthiest play, down to every word, and allowed the actors to fully embody their characters, create a connection, and extend them to the audience without resorting to modern gimmicks.
McKellen deftly portrayed King Lear’s descent into madness with brevity and humor. He exudes poignancy, even in the opening scenes of the play when Lear attempts lucidity. He brutally mistreats his daughter to establish his power, but one’s heart still goes out to this mistaken old man. McKellen’s intonations and slight gestures foreshadow the growing conflict of the play, capturing the image of regality disintegrating into a doddering old man.
The court fool and faithful companion, played by Sylvester McCoy, added just enough humor to the dark moments of the play. The actor could have easily gone over the top with his performance, creating a grotesque and silly character. But he found a beautiful balance; his jester garnered a sense of empathy while fully exploiting the potential humor in his words.
The Duke of Kent (Jonathan Hyde) and Lear’s oldest daughter, Goneril (Frances Barber), held their own against McKellen and McCoy.
Hyde portrayed the duke with a sense of nobility and normality, but also a complexity that some characters lacked. Goneril, at first indiscernible from her sister Regan (Monica Dolan), becomes a psychotic mess of a woman by the end of the play.
King Lear’s youngest daughter, Cordelia, was played by Romola Garai in her Royal Shakespeare Company debut. Her performance was solid, but she was understandably overshadowed by some of world’s greatest stage actors. In comparison, she seemed to falter in her convictions.
Her initial refusal to publicly acknowledge her love for her father seemed overly blase and her later dejection appeared routine.
Nunn’s scene directions created many striking tableaux, illustrating the connections between characters nonverbally.
Dramatic lighting and deafening sound ““ almost too deafening at times ““ kept the attention of the audience for the entirety of the three hour and 40 minute show, a tall order in this world of Adderall and Ritalin. These oft-overlooked technical aspects produced an ambience the Bard surely would have treasured.
““ Amber Bissell