King Lear (Globe)

After a flurry of Lear productions in modern dress, there’s a very old English theme to this production. Whether it’s Claire van Kampen’s haunting music (indeed, the songs are in Old English) or the greenery that dots the Globe’s open spaces, we’re reminded very much that this is a play that, of course, is set in a pre-Christian time and whose unremitting tragedy is a reminder that life is nasty, brutish and short and offers no glimpse of any Christian redemption. And if anyone has a romantic tendency to hark back to a vision of Merrie England, King Lear is always a hearty antidote to such views.

What I like about Dominic Drumgoole’s production is that draws on that yearning for a pastoral life – King Lear’s retinue could be blood brother’s to Duke Senior’s in the Forest of Arden – while emphasising the human tragedy. For example, we’re reminded that Edgar isn’t a lone beggar and that England was dotted with beggars who had been outcast from the society.

At the start, David Calder’s Lear is more like the merry uncle who cracks the jokes at parties with little sense of kingly pride; even when Cordelia says that she’ll not speak of her love for him, it’s treated more like a private family joke. However, his disintegration is swift and while there have been madder Lears (with deference to the Globe’s open spaces, Calder has eschewed the current trend of completely disrobing) there have been few more touching; there was a stunned silence when he appeared with the dead Cordelia – something that’s not too often heard at this theatre.

There’s an excellent Fool too from Danny Lee Wynter. He looks and acts like he should be playing Puck but it’s this impishness that makes a perfect counterpoint for Lear’s growing madness.

I liked Paul Copley’s hearty and dignified Kent and Kellie Bright’s Regan – blinding Gloucester herself in a state of almost sexual ecstasy. Unfortunately, rather too many of the other cast members fail to illuminate the stage meaning that great stretches of the evening fall rather flat – Calder’s performance certainly deserves better.

However, the Globe can be an unforgiving environment and I get the feeling that this is a production that will find its feet in time and will certainly be worth catching later in the run.

– Maxwell Cooter