King Lear
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Jonathan Munby
Design by Paul Willis
Ben & Max Tingham – music & sound
Minerva Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre
Thursday 5th October 2017, 19.45
With Ian McKellen as King Lear
CAST:
Jonathan Bailey – Edgar
Kirsty Bushell – Regan
Sinead Cusack – Kent
Richard Clews – Old Man & gentleman informer
Phil Daniels – Fool
John Hastings – Curan, Doctor
Dervla Kirwan – Goneril
Tamara Lawrence – Cordelia
Dominic Mafham – Albany
Jake Mann – Burgundy
Michael Matus – Oswald
Ian McKellen – King Lear
Damien Molony- Edmund
Caleb Roberts – King of France
Patrick Robinson – Cornwall
Danny Webb – Gloucester
We are “friends” for early booking at Chichester. Suffice it to say that on the first day of member’s booking, logging in right on opening, we could not get seats together for this production in the smaller Minerva Theatre. There were only odd singles left, which we took. Ian McKellan in a theatre with fewer than 300 seats? What do you expect? We saw Pete Postlethwaite’s King Lear in the Donmar Warehouse, which is even smaller. The play suits an intimate experience, and this is what McKellen was seeking. He has played King Lear before, ten years ago at the RSC. In the programme he says:
For me, having played in theatres too uncongenially spacious, I wanted to speak the lines again, at times as conversation, in a theatre like the Minerva where intimacy conjoins audience and actor.
The play was done in the same Minerva Theatre in 2013, with Frank Langella in the title role. That was very much the traditional “brilliant actor manager” production in a style ranging from Henry Irving to Olivier. In other words, the cast are basically there to feed lines to the great man … and no mistake, Langella is a great thespian of the old school. In contrast, Antony Sher’s major RSC 2016 version, which is being reprised next year, put the equally great David Troughton as Gloucester, and fast rising star Paapa Essediu as Edmund.
A great performance is enhanced by great performances around it, and I believed this Minerva one would be more “democratic” than the Langella. A look at the stellar female cast list confirms this … Sinead Cusack, Kirsty Bushell, Devla Kirwan. Tamara Lawrence was outstanding in The National Theatre’s Twelfth Night this year. However, the male names are definitely ‘lesser known’ to me, so less democratic than the RSC. Just as The Globe did a month ago, Kent (Sinead Cusack) has become female. Surely coincidentally, just as at the Globe, Cornwall is Afro-Carribean, and both Cordelias are non-white. That’s four similarities.
Albany (left) and Cornwall (right) get their halves of Cordelia’s share of the kingdom.
The Minerva is a three sides “75% in the round” theatre. A circle is mid stage, covered with red carpet in part one, white chalky-looking surface in the second. It starts off in terrific style, with a formal assembly for Lear’s division of the kingdom. The royals have red sashes. A huge portrait of Lear dominates the set. There is choral anthem singing from the whole cast, which was so good I wonder why occasion was never found to reprise it. A touch I liked was at the invocation of the name of a deity (the gods, Apollo), everyone on stage made a palms up gesture to the sky, just as Christians (Lear is pre-Christian) might cross themselves. I thought a minor loss was the positioning of Cordelia with her back to the ‘straight on’ section of the theatre, so that we lost her early reactions to the speeches.
Cordelia (Tamara Lawrence), Lear & The Duke of Burgundy (Jake Mann)
It’s modern dress, and looked at its best in the formal, uniformed first scene. Mostly it was neutral from there on, though Goneril and Reagan were dressed to contrast. Goneril (Derva Kirwan) was in formal skirt suits or dresses, while Regan (Kirsty Bushell) had the more girly sexy dresses, and later slim fit trousers and a halter top. Just as at The Globe, Kent started out as the Countess of Kent, and disguised herself as a male after her banishment. Towards the end, I sighed as they stuck everyone in desert storm uniforms, lighter for the French with a small tricolour badge. That happens SO often. Which means too often. I thought it was particularly odd to put both Cordelia and Lear in those omnipresent camouflage uniforms for the last scene.
The carousing scene chez-Goneril had a large crowd of “knights” and the mooning bit a the start set the tone quickly and easily. It’s always another good scene. Phil Daniels as The Fool played banjo, and mercifully sang a lot of the incomprehensible guff in the text, which makes it palatable.
We all came to see Sir Ian McKellen. Indeed, I recognised several actors in the audience. As expected, it was a superb performance. How he has the stamina at 78 to sustain such a demanding role, let alone getting soaked to the skin and continuing in a sodden suit, then trotting off at speed, then managing what Antony Sher avoided … McKellen carries Cordelia on at the end. There’s really a LOT of water in the storm scene. They end up virtually wading in puddles of it. I was amazed that at the end of the sene, stage sodden and splashing, they brought on what appeared to be one bar electric fire to lay Lear on a stretcher by. Surely it was a light-effect 12 volt one. On lights, it’s an excellent plot, but Kent’s torch in the storm scene kept blinding me. I’d guess she was aiming at the lighting box just above and behind me, but I was fixed in it. As were others as it moved around. A torch shining on the audience has to be fleeting!
McKellen has the range from near whisper to bellow … he shares the quality with Kenneth Branagh of being perfectly audible at what seems like very low conversational volume at times. The scene after being found by the French is done in a hospital bed with a drip, and I’ve never seen the lines with Cordelia here done better. True of the ending as well. Comparisons may be odious, but I’d say Antony Sher is ahead on points on The Fool scenes and Gloucester scenes … but then Sher had David Troughton as Gloucester. Both are tremendous Lears.
It’s very wet indeed. Fool (Phil Daniels), Lear (Ian McKellen), Kent (Sinead Cusack)
Lear and Daughters is mirrored by Gloucester and Sons. They reproduce the original title page and the full title was:
True Chronicle History of the life and death of King LEAR and his three daughters.
With the unfortunate life of Edgar, son and heir to the Earl of Gloucester, and his sullen and assumed humour of Tom of Bedlam.
The very best versions of Lear for me have had Edmund the Bastard as a major conducting role … even the Globe version which I disliked recently had a strong Edmund-audience interaction. It was missing here to the detriment of the overall production. I’m not knocking the performance, but it wasn’t given the space or freedom so that Edmund became a pretty minor character, his quick snogs with Goneril and Regan were almost blink and miss it. His nondescript costumes don’t help. Edgar was fortunate in that he was allowed to get dressed again for the blind Gloucester on the clifftop scenes. There is always something you’d want to repeat in future versions and here it was Gloucester doing a straight fall backwards for the cliff jump and being caught in Edgar’s arms. But I thought in this vision of the play, both Edmund and Edgar were diminished.
King Lear (Ian McKellen) and Gloucester (Danny Webb)
Kirsty Bushell is the randy Duchess of Cornwall. Whoops. Still, it was Shakespeare who named the role, and anyway Ms Bushell is far better looking than the current incumbent. Goneril and Regan were both great, though I’m surprised that Dervla Kirwan omits Goodnight Sweetheart from her programme c.v. Not the first actor in a Shakespeare to fail to mention a sitcom. I am the world’s greatest sitcom fan … nothing to be ashamed of in being in a good one, and Goodnight Sweetheart was a very good one indeed. Kirsty Bushell is given the room to make Regan an outstanding part. The sadistic gleeful dancing while Gloucester’s eyes are put out are chilling. She’s getting off on it. Cornwall squashes the eyeballs into the carpet, one by one. Bits fly about.
Kirsty Bushell as Regan, Danny Webb as Gloucester
The Gloucester eyeball scene takes place in an abattoir, though I guess it’s supposed to be the larder of Gloucester’s house. In the scene before, Lear was in there addressing realistic looking cow and pig heads as Goneril and Regan. Later Regan strips off to bra and pants in front of an embarrassed Oswald, played here as a smarmy butler. It was a well done seductive bit, though surely that should have been reserved for a scene with Edmund if you’re going to do it. It’s not just lines, but a director can shift focus (as here on Regan) without adding or subtracting much to script. Regan benefitted as a role. Edmund didn’t. For me, both should.
Lear, Regan (Kirsty Bushell), Goneril (Dervla Kirwan)
The part that was larger than normal was the Duke of Albany (Dominic Mafham). He is important as the “goodie” but most often recently, this is the character that’s been heavily cut. It wasn’t here.
Kent was good, but I’ve liked it more when he’s a ferocious and sturdy soldier. It seemed cross-casting for the sake of it. The stocks were replaced by a cage hoisted up high.
There’s a good stylised stand off between the British and French armies. Our other comment was that several times the pace flagged in sections. Some of it is being too long (see below). Yet some was economical … both Cornwall and Regan meet their deaths off stage, which saves a lot of time … it cut Cornwall’s lines, but then they’re hard ones to carry off. Lear fits modern dress well, but given the amount of politics, intrigue and nastiness, more could be made of modern stuff.
A large standing ovation at the end, deservedly so.
OVERALL
Sir Ian McKellen gave a 5 star performance. It wasn’t a 5 star production for us though because if its imbalance.
Four stars for me. ****
LENGTH
Length is an issue. It starts at 7.45. The curtain call ended at 11.10. Twenty minute interval. It’s a full 3 hours 5 minutes running time then, plus the 20 minute interval. I make that 20 to 25 minutes longer than The Globe production two weeks ago. It meant there were bits of text retained in there that were new to me, in my memory at least.They announced a 1 hour 50 minute first half, and a 1 hour 5 minute second half. No, it doesn’t add up. Add 5 minutes to each. It was exacerbated by a tannoy announcement at 7.30 that it was starting in 4 minutes, and everyone hurried in to sit and wait for 10 minutes. A play is more exciting than a lecture or a lesson, but the research shows that 90 minutes is maximum concentration time in education. I find directors’ belief that we must focus fully without a break for the length they dictate arrogant. Yes, we do with 130 minute films, but you can go in or out without disturbing the actors on screen. You probably don’t need to, but the fact that you can reduces stress. The shape of this theatre and its entrances dictates the rather fascist “No readmission” rule. At other theatres you could go out, then stand at the back. Impossible here. At least The Minerva is one of the few theatres with adequate toilets, but as ever at this length, my companion reports distressed conversations in the queue for the ladies at the break. What’s wrong with two ten minute breaks? Or putting the Gloucester eyeball scene into the second part (as has been done)? Effectively, with the tannoy announcement, I put the time in seats for the first part at two hours 5 minutes. I’m fine with the loos, but the Minerva seats at the back are low, and because of the steep rake that gives such good sightlines, there is no space for feet under the seat in front. At my height it’s an uncomfortable verging on excruciating experience after 90 minutes. It does strongly affect my overall enjoyment. I squirm. I have to say I had a double motivation for leaping to my feet for the standing ovation. McKellen deserved it AND I was desperate to stand up.
While I’m ranting about this, people declined to stand when you’re trying to squeeze past at the interval with the seat back in front only inches above your ankle height. It’s bloody rude and bloody dangerous! One day someone will topple over.
PROGRAMME
An interesting idea. Every one does a first person bio. I really liked that.
WHAT THE PAPERS SAID
5
Domenic Cavendish, Telegraph *****
One hopes, of course, that this isn’t the last time we’ll see him in Shakespeare or on stage but if this is his swansong, what a triumph – and one I fervently pray is caught on film.
Paul Taylor, Independent, *****
In the wraparound intimacy of this space, McKellen is able to heighten the intensity of what Lear says through colloquial understatement and a playing-around with the beat and tempo of the verse that gives an almost jazz-like freedom and unpredictability to the king’s utterances. Instead of generalised rant, nuance.
Mark Shenton, The Stage *****
Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard *****
Maxwell Cooter, What’s On Stage *****
4
Michael Billington, Guardian ****
a production that gives every character a precise social function and that, in McKellen’s Lear, contains a performance rooted in minute observation of old age and a profound understanding of the enlightenment that comes from dispossession.
Anne Treneman, The Times ****
There was a danger that this could have ended up as The Ian McKellen Show, a star vehicle for him as, at the age of 78, he plays Shakespeare’s flawed king one more time, but it is a much finer production than that.
Christopher Hart, The Sunday Times ****
It is McKellen’s marvellous versatility and gentle nobility …that make this such a memorable production: the mild wistfulness with which he says ‘Let me not be mad, not mad’, or the vague smile when he is reunited with Gloucester, two hobbling derelicts on a country road, the direct ancestors of Beckett’s tramps.
Susannah Clapp, Observer, ****
Ian McKellen’s Lear crumbles gradually, as if he were a Dover cliff being eroded. Loss of faith and gain of humanity: it is a beautifully clear line, but not overinsistent. At the beginning, a king in regalia and courtiers raising their arms robotically at any mention of the gods; at the end, a man in a shift with no heavenly overseers.
Neil Norman, Daily Express, ****
3
Anne Cox, Stage Review ***
This Lear is all about Ian McKellen and his multi-layered performance is outstanding, whether he is castigating his daughters for their betrayal of him or wandering abroad, his mind addled with dementia, handing out herbs and flowers.
KING LEAR ON THIS BLOG
- King Lear – David Haig Bath Theatre Royal
- King Lear Frank Langella Chichester Minerva 2013
- King Lear – Russell-Beale National Theatre 2014
- King Lear- Barrie Rutter, Northern Broadsides tour, directed by Jonathan Miller, Bath Theatre Royal
- King Lear – Antony Sher, RSC 2016
- King Lear -Kevin R McNally, Globe 2017
- King Lear – Ian McKellen, Chichester Minerva, 2017
- King Lear – Kenneth Branagh, West End, 2023
LINKS:
DIRECTED BY JONATHAN MUNBY
First Light, Chichester Minerva 2016
The Merchant of Venice, Globe 2015
Twelfth Night, English Touring Theatre, Brighton 2015
Thérèse Raquin, Bath Theatre Royal, 2014
Anthony & Cleopatra, Globe, 2014
IAN McKELLEN
No Man’s Land, by Harold Pinter West End 2016
The Syndicate by Eduardo de Filippo, adapted Mike Poulton, Chichester company at Bath Theatre Royal
FILM
An Unexpected Journey: The Hobbit Part 1
Mr. Holmes
KIRSTY BUSHELL
Romeo & Juliet, Globe 2017 (Juliet)
Hedda Gabler, Salisbury 2016 (Hedda)
The White Devil by John Webster, RSC 2014 (Vittoria)
The Tempest, RSC 2012 (Sebastian)
Twelfth Night, RSC 2012 (Olivia)
Comedy of Errors, RSC 2012 (Adriana)
DAMIEN MOLONY
No Man’s Land, by Harold Pinter West End 2016
TAMARA LAWRENCE
King Charles III, TV version 2017
Twelfth Night, National Theatre 2017 (Viola)
PHIL DANIELS
Knight of The Burning Pestle, Wanamaker 2104 (The Citizen)
Antony & Cleopatra, The Globe 2014 (Endobarbus)
JONATHAN BAILEY – FILM
Testament of Youth
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