Adelaide Fringe review: King Lear (Buzzcuts Sunday 28 February 2010) [links to external site]
Adelaide Fringe review: King Lear
Ben Crisp | Buzzcuts
This interpretation of the great Shakespearean tragedy by members of the Sydney University Dramatic Society approaches the classic text with a blend of bravado and innovation, and rewards the audience more than is to be expected of a student production.
The cast delivers the four hundred year old dialogue with skill and confidence; admittedly, such confidence that the speed of delivery that (no doubt in an effort to contract the lengthy material into a two hour Fringe production) occasionally creeps into the realm of unintelligibility. Stephen Sharpe however shines as the insane monarch in the titular role, playing the 90-year-old Lear with an energy and humanity that never belies the tragic patriarch’s descent into madness amidst a power struggle between his daughters and their husbands.
Lear has decided to divide his kingdom according to his daughters’ sycophancy, resulting in his disinheritance of the honest Cordelia (played with earnest by Jacqueline Breen) and a bloodthirsty quarrel between his disrespectful in-laws. Houston Ash, as the dark and brooding Edmond, sadly bridles his obvious talent in favour of a monotone menace, whilst Ash Vlahos is pleasing as the cruel and excitable Regan. Clare Matchett injects a most welcome and cheeky vitality to the drama as the precocious Fool, emerging like Oscar The Grouch (with the personality of Elmo) from a green wheelie bin to tease and berate the King and his court.
The use of the wheelie bins is an example of the effectively innovative set dressing, for the most part utilising newspaper to create the backdrop, swords, snow and – brilliantly – the paper crown of the King. Whilst visually and psychologically effective the shredded newspaper snow becomes problematic for the cast during the storm of Act 3 when its noisome rustling tends to drown out all but Sean Ohlendorf’s booming rants as the beggar-guised Edgar. Ohlendorf manages to create a convincing transition from the babbling Tom o’Bedlam into the prodigal disinherited son of the blinded Gloucester, played with ferocity and brilliant agony in rich, resonant tones by the excellent Oliver Burton. Even Burton and Ohlendorf struggle to compete with the odd choice of audio to represent the storm – a mixture of what sounds like microphone feedback and radio interference – which could be mistaken for a technical error until it permeates almost the entirety of the third and fourth acts. Like the use of newspaper, this seems to be a bold attempt to engage So What? Production’s commendable aim of representing the humanity and relevance of the characters on stage, but unfortunately serves more often than not to overpower rather than reinforce the drama.
Where the newspaper motif would better serve is in a more consistent representation of props and costume pieces. Whilst rolled newspapers were parried and thrust as swords or batons, at other times the cast drew breadknives and semi-automatic pistols and – most disturbingly – when blood was spilled it was issued by the cast slapping what appeared to be small tomato sauce packets against their brows, before collapsing to the floor in a fashion that leaned more towards farce than provocative irony. Likewise the plain costumes (uniform black trousers and white collared shirts) tended to blend the performances rather than emphasise the humanity of the characters, particularly when several of the players delivered monologues whilst rolling up their sleeves; the exception being the Fool’s plain singlets adorned with wonderfully irreverent digital-age abbreviations such as “WTF” and “OMG”.
Despite these perhaps too-courageous attempts by capable director Christopher Hey, overall the innovations in staging and set design demonstrate the company’s potential to create exciting Shakespearean theatre given the opportunity to give the text the time and experience it deserves. This is most evident in the surprise ending, where the fourth wall is suddenly broken. The cast performs a rhythmic physical underscore whilst Pierce Wilcox as the engaging and sadistic Cornwall addresses the audience in the first of a number of passages from contemporary theatre beginning with a line from Forced Entertainment’s “Bloody Mess” (a telling reference that seems to reveal the kind of experimental theatre that So What? Productions aspire to). The numerous deaths of the finale are contracted into a contrived summary, and whilst this sudden departure from the consistency of the rest of the production leaves the audience confused it does serve to challenge us to consider the absurdity of human tragedy which results from a lack of understanding between people.
A challenging piece of theatre for both cast and audience, So What? Productions’ King Lear is an enjoyable interpretation of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy. Whilst the feeling remains that the lengthy production has been cut short for the sake of brevity, there is plenty in this production to reward the audience and demonstrate the potential for further truly innovative theatre by the still-young company.
