King Lear

Synopsis

King Lear divides his Kingdom between his daughters according to a declaration of their love for him. His eldest Goneril and Regan exaggerate their affection and inherit. His youngest daughter Cordelia speaks only the truth and is banished. So begins the tragedy of King Lear, whose dignity, sanity and finally life are torn from him by a self-seeking younger generation, ambitious for his power. What is love, what is madness, what is truth - Shakespeare explores these questions together with many others in King Lear, widely considered to be his greatest tragedy.

Our Review:

20 February 2006

There’s terror and pity in Shakespeare’s tragedy of natural order turned upside down and the idea of a man – a monarch – stripped of everything has spoken in different ways to audiences in its performance history. Interpretations of redemption and self-knowledge through suffering range from Christian allegory to psychological journey.

In Creation’s stark clear reading, director Douglas Rintoul turns a bright uncompromising light on the dysfunctional noble families at the story’s centre. There’s nowhere to hide in the vast hangar of Oxford’s BMW plant under Simon Hutching’s harsh industrial lighting, etching hard shadows on every entrance and exit.

Before a word is spoken, Goneril’s single-minded ruthlessness, Regan’s concupiscence and Cordelia’s discomfiture are plain from their faces and body language. It’s chilling to watch Lear literally wheeled in on a trolley, to walk into disaster of his own making with open eyes. His ‘blindness’ is indeed a precursor to Glouceste...

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