Written by William Shakespeare
We have seen the best of our time.
— Gloucester, Act I.
The world has been turned upside down. Everything you thought you could count on turns out to be wrong, the people you thought you could trust muck everything up, and eventually you just start to think you’re going mad. And everyone makes mistakes. Just some of them have the power to change history. Sound familiar? King Lear unfolds in a world not so very different to yours, one where the former King has to stand by and watch other people stuff up in increasingly human ways. His tragedy is our tragedy: he gets things wrong, badly wrong. The challenge is to realise before it’s too late.
When I lie down you’re going to start to cry, and you won’t be able to stop for the rest of the show … You’ll cry because in the end, this is you. You are me. I’m dying … and you’re slipping away too.
— Forced Entertainment, Bloody Mess.
The point is that Lear is a human being: whether he’s 90 or 19, a King or a cretin, English or Ecuadorian. And somewhere along the line, we’ve lost sight of that. So What? Productions King Lear argues forcefully that we must connect with each other; once empathy fails us, we don’t recognise humanity and all is lost. A live theatre environment presents us with an almost unique chance to look you in the face and demand that you take notice of the people around you. Lear goes through a lot to realise what it is to be a human being. His eyes are opened to just what it means to be alive, and have the power to do something about it. And he screams. He screams because there are so many people in the world. And so little chance that you are going to matter.
Whether we call the period ‘the post-postmodern age’ or ‘the age of terrorism’ it is characterised both by an intimate reawakening to the fragility of life and a more general sense of connection to one another.
— Peggy Phelan.
An ensemble of twelve student theatre makers rips the heart out of Shakespeare’s greatest play, sticks it on a spike and shoves it in your face. King Lear will mark the first appearance of So What? Productions at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Australia’s largest arts festival.
And my poor Fool is hanged. No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life
And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never.
— Lear, Act V.
Performed
3 – 12 February 2010 (Seymour Centre, Sydney)
16 – 28 February 2010 (Holden Street Theatres, Adelaide)
