May 12, 2012
Ryan Watson heads over to the Customs House for another fantastic performance from SunFest...
Shakespeare needs no introduction. If you’ve ever switched on a television you’ve watched something he‘s influenced. His recurring themes of betrayal and tragedy have shown up everywhere from The Lion King to Eastenders, and so in a way I’m really familiar with Shakespeare.
But in another way, the more traditional way, I’m completely new to Shakespeare, and this was one of my first experiences with his work. This meant that, like the thousands of GCSE English students across the country, my main concern before viewing was whether or not I could understand the language. I couldn’t.
If I was there to focus solely on the language, I’d have been completely lost. Fortunately for me, performance is the key word here, because despite often finding myself unsure what was being said, I could almost always understand what was going on.
This was in no small part, due to a brilliant performance from Craig Duggan, who played the lead role. As King Lear he demonstrated a range of emotion, from being the angry, hard ruling king of the beginning, to the heartbroken father of the end, he made the characters transformation not only entertaining, but absolutely convincing.
He was backed up by a great cast, a particular highlight being Cordelia (Amy Hunt). her scenes with Lear toward the end were played brilliantly, and had someone of lesser ability been cast, the tragic ending wouldn’t have carried so much weight.
There was also Lauren Wilson as antagonist Edmund. I often found myself comparing her performance to Tom Hiddleston as Loki from last years ‘Thor‘. The character of Loki and the film as a whole had a clear Shakespearean flavour to it, being basically a family drama on a grand scale, it had much in common with King Lear.
And this ties back into my opening point, that Shakespeare’s influence is in everything. Wilson’s performance really made me think about just how true this is, there were moments where her character would do things, and I couldn’t help but be amazed, it was chilling to see such familiar devices used in such a pure form, and when seen in such a context, it’s easy to understand why Shakespeare‘s work is such a strong influence on contemporary writers.
The updating of costumes, and the use of guns was an interesting choice, I’m not sure what era this version of the play was supposed to be set in, it seemed to be something of a mash-up of the original time period, the present day and the 1930’s, and while this could be seen as a problem, one not helped by the lack of stage design, I also think it gave the piece a timeless, almost alternative universe quality. It made us aware that we were watching a piece of theatre, and it wasn’t real, but it was teaching us very real lessons, and we were seeing very real emotions.
There were flaws, such as the lack of stage design, and the sound effect of the rain, which despite adding a lot to the emotion as Lear almost kills himself, when coupled with the absolute lack of set design, simply made it sound awkward. Not to the point where it ruined the play, but until you got swept away it was a pain.
These flaws aside, I think the most important point about this production, for me personally, was just how much, as a Shakespeare amateur, I understood, not all of it, but enough that I still had an enjoyable experien...
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