Director: Rupert Goold
Reviewer: by Kate Cotterell
This piece has been eagerly anticipated as one of the highlights of Liverpool’s capital of culture year and brings Pete Postlethwaite back to his roots in Liverpool and at the Everyman.
The inclusion of Postlethwaite in the title role of Lear is surely what has created the furore around this piece and meant that tickets are virtually sold out for all shows. Yet at 3 hours (excluding intervals) this is not one for the faint hearted! Despite this the story of Lear and his three daughters moves along with vigour – the mood and feel of the piece developing as Lear’s kingdom falls into disarray at the hands of his ruthless daughters and their greedy husbands.
There are strong performances from Charlotte Randle as Regan, who is at once vicious, sex crazed and authoritative, and Jonjo O’Neill as the treacherous Edmund. John Shrapnel as the Earl of Gloucester and Nigel Cooke as the Earl of Kent provide a consistency to their roles and you feel as if you are in a safe pair of hands when they on stage. Forbes Masson as the Fool also delivers an accomplished performance – funny and touching throughout.
There are, of course, some fairly gruesome moments - the most disgusting of these being the crucial scene where Gloucester’s eyes are plucked out. This is played out almost too convincingly and the intimate stage space of the everyman creates an uncomfortable atmosphere while this is happening.
The direction throughout is sharp and purposeful, yet the challenge of bringing Lear up to date only works to a point. The projected scenes of riots and violence along with snippets of Margaret Thatcher from her speech as she entered Downing Street in 1979 add little to the production and feels almost as if the director has simply tried too hard to place the piece within a time frame where is simply does not belong.Poslethwaite’s performance of Lear is, perhaps, not what you might expect. He does not present Lear as a tyrannical figure, and as his daughter’s spiral out of control our sympathies are definitely with the old man. This can be said even more so in the final act as Postlethwaite gives a performance which demonstrates the true vulnerability of the character and his own brilliance as an actor.
What this performance has in special effects – the rain on stage is beautiful (if a little long) – it lacks in a real structure and by placing the piece out of context we lose something of its true nature and message.
Photos: Stephen Vaughan
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