king lear

Water pounds the thrust stage in bullets. The rain falls from somewhere above the ceiling of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre, splashing exuberantly from skin and stage. Rivulets slipping from his grey hair, Lear stands alone: he shivers, hugs himself tightly--visibly struggling with every word of his storm soliloquy. He is lit from directly above, which creates weird light-play on every surrounding surface; with each small movement, hundreds of tiny water droplets--glowing gold from stage-lighting--fan around him. Jarring lights and the sound of thunder (combined with an incongruous electric zapping noise) occasionally punctuate the appearance of the Fool, who tears apart the already-minimalist set to reveal the industrial, metal-girder skeleton of the stage. A haunting, feral howl. Chaos. Lights down.


***


In last night's Royal Shakespeare Company's production of King Lear, for which we travelled by train to Stratford-upon-Avon, this haunting scene left us shivering alongside Lear at intermission. The show itself was gorgeous, with only a few negatives (the second half, perhaps too indulgent of Lear's crazy-speeches, dragged; Cordelia was only so-so) to mar our enjoyment.


 It made a lot of interesting choices: some characters' costumes looked positively medieval, particularly in the beginning, but they slowly meandered into modernity. By the last scene, most of the men were wearing World War I-style uniforms; instead of the big battle, the lights simply dropped and massive gunfire could be heard. Greg Hicks' now-famed performance of Lear was as brilliant as I've been hearing. Goneril and Regan were notably good as well: Regan had a red-lipped, gorgeous sort of vindictiveness about her, while Goneril was actually quite sympathetic: sad, infirm, failing. The set, with its ever-discordant jumble of the old and the new, added a lot to the show. The unpredictable lighting (a chandelier in this scene; sparking industrial halogen ceiling-fixtures that look like they could fall at any second in that one) kept the audience aware--Brecht-like?--of the show's artificiality, and the blocking made good use of the thrust stage. All in all, a successful performance.

We also got to look around Stratford itself for awhile. It's a cute little town on the river whose only claim to interest, of course, is good old Bill, whose home (pictured above) we visited excitedly. Consequently, every cafe and pub and shopping-centre and street name seems to have some relation to the Bard--and some of them are quite silly.

 Along the river, we stopped to muse at the statue of the man himself: he sits atop a high throne, and sculptural renderings of Prince Hal, Falstaff, Lady Macbeth, and Hamlet surround him in death as they did in life. 

In fact, I even got a little up-close-and-personal with Falstaff. My eyes are up here, buddy. 


All in all, Robby and Kelly and Megan and I--three of us in the English M.St programme, and one amateur enthusiast--had a lovely time in Stratford, and the show definitely lived up to its expectations. Hicks' Lear is not one to miss: students in and around Oxford, do yourself a favour and pick up a £5 ticket for this spectacular performance.