Review: KING LEAR, Royal Exchange Theatre
Photo credit: Helen Murray
A King, or a madman? David Threlfall hurtles through King Lear between grandeur and folly as the roving, tragic monarch. One of Shakespeare’s most beloved tragedies, this retelling of King Lear, adapted and directed by Matthew Dunster, is electric in scope as it follows the politics and betrayals in the court of the King. Performed in-the-round, with a soaring set design by Anna Fleischle at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, the production is spellbinding from start to finish.
There is an eerie quality to the lightning strike splitting the grey stage, to the chains of the set that descend and ascend at will to detain or partition characters and scenes. But first, a party. A blast of Kesha to awaken the literature fans of the audience and hence blast King Lear into a more modern time of stilettos and car keys, but still hand-delivered letters. A fitting modernisation that somehow gets it just right without overstepping. It’s here that the ageing King Lear asks his three daughters to profess their love to him and when only two oblige, divides his kingdom in half between them, casting away the third, Cordelia (Isobel Akuwudike). This act becomes his fatal undoing and sets up the deception from his daughters and apparent allies to follow.
Nadine Shah and Lisa Diveney play the other two daughters, Goneril and Regan respectively, with cunning conviction, yet their characters lack emotional nuance and, at times, feel reduced to calculating, sexualised women. Characterisation falls much stronger across some of the male characters but feels lost for three women imperative to the plot. Threlfall’s Lear is masterful in the descent into madness. He staggers between fury and desolation, slowly losing his grip on the kingdom he once had. At his side is the Earl of Gloucester (Jonathan Slinger), with a scheming illegitimate son (Paddy Stafford) who outwits his son, the heir (Tom Varey), in a bid at power and status in the newly divided kingdom. Stafford is an enigmatic Edmund, sultry and sly in his manner, with quick wit and pinpoint comic delivery bringing Shakespeare’s dry humour to the fore.
King Lear is epic in its emotional scale - from the devouring regret of the King to the harsh unfeeling of his daughters, and Fleischle’s set is no less grand. An almost perpetual storm hangs forebodingly over the stage, as a crashing soundscape fills the room. Impressive lighting and placement of the curtains of chainmail falling from the ceiling amplify the taut, ominous atmosphere as seduction and betrayal run rife below and within.
A blistering performance, Dunster’s King Lear is as powerful in its meandering monologues as in its vivid bloodshed and violence. The sensationalised final acts remain as shocking as intended and the story as relevant today as power struggles, duplicity and ambition remain as ever a part of humanity.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Hannah Goldswain
King Lear plays at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre until 15 Nov, with further info here.