Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
Ian Brown, artistic director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse, presents his latest Shakespeare, King Lear, with Tim Pigott-Smith in the eponymous role. This project is undoubtedly more difficult than last year's As You Like It, but both cast and production team have managed to create an enjoyable evening, though possibly one more suited to the Shakespeare fanatic than average theatregoer.
Pigott-Smith shines as the aged King - his mental degradation is superbly played and we truly feel his anguish at his misguided decisions in Act One and their resulting ramifications. Lear is not selfish (as can so often be the case with a poorer actor in the role), but warped with regret and impotent to his circumstances. Brown and Pigott-Smith manage to craft a character powerful in speech but weak in mind and body - an impressive feat.
The supporting cast are not to be forgotten, though. Sam Crane as Edgar, the spurned son of the Earl of Gloucester, puts in an almost equally impressive performance. He is accomplished at both commanding the vast, cavernous stage on his own and also crafting the finer details of character when performing with others. His portrayal of Edgar was heartbreaking and a performance which deserves credit of its own. Not to be forgotten too are Regan and Goneril (Hedydd Dylan and Neve McIntosh)- the malicious, opportunistic daughters of Lear. Dylan and McIntosh's performances remind you that Shakespeare can write interesting and intriguing female roles; this particularly came to play in the fast-paced second act in which both actresses dominated their scenes, exuding a forceful and terrifying, yet still sultry, threat.
My opinions on the set are cleaved in two. In the first act, the play takes place in a humongous tiled cube, raked to such an angle that performers often looked as though they were falling down or having tremendous trouble in storming offstage, upstage. The set certainly looked very impressive, but I fear it is hugely impractical and tends to make the actors look a little silly. The set in the second half, however, was utterly inspired. Against a backdrop of never-ending darkness and the constant, troublesome moon, all the set contained was a raked, semi-circular platform towards the back of the stage. This gave the indication of barrenness and desert land which worked perfectly against the great, pervading hopelessness that saturated the second act.
A problem which I have never encountered in the Quarry Theatre is issues with volume. The space is designed to resonate sound. However, this was an almost constant affliction in Lear. Richard O'Callaghan as the Fool was impossible to hear, his lines often mumbled over - perhaps as a result of the actor's age, but such an accomplished actor should not be so out of breath and mumbly all the time, especially when playing a character devised to add energy to the proceedings. O'Callaghan's performance was, unfortunately, a wasted one.
Brown's decision to set Pigott-Smith atop a huge wall in his madness scene is a perplexing one. Simultaneously, huge bolts of thunder and lightning attack the audiences senses. It is a tremendously distracting and frustrating scene - we want to hear Lear's famous speech but it is drowned out and he is set in a place which the theatre was never designed to accommodate an actor in, just a few feet below the lighting rig. As a result, this entire scene was lost - although it looked epic - and due respect was not paid to the audience who wanted to hear Lear's descent into insanity. The mutterings and grumblings of audience members in the interval about this very problem suggest that I was not alone in the thought.
King Lear is somewhat of an endurance test, running at just under three hours, and the dense script is sometimes quite hard to unpick and work through. Nevertheless, the stunning second act is reward enough for the first. Brown and his cast of highly commendable actors are mostly very impressive and put in some astounding performances worth the ticket price alone, just as long as you don't get caught up in annoyance about some of the points which I have here detailed.
King Lear is running until October 22nd. Tickets can be booked by ringing the Box Office on 0113 213 7700 or online at http://www.wyp.org.uk/
You must log in to submit a comment.
