TOURING theatre company Northern Broadside is famed for its Shakespeare performances. Delivered in classic northern accents, productions are known for their ability to make Shakespeare accessible, drawing out the humour, even in the tragedies, highlighting the clarity of the plot and presenting characters rooted in reality.
All the performances are strong.
The current production of King Lear stars Northern Broadsides’ Founder and Artistic Director Barry Rutter as Lear. Rutter usually directs himself, but for a play as large as Lear he's brought in famed director Jonathan Miller.
Everything about this production enhances the clarity of the storyline.
Designer Isabella Bywater places the actors in the Jacobean period. Strongly lit, by Guy Hoare, from the front and framed by a giant clothes rack type structure in front of complete darkness, the actors appear as if in a painting, the scenes abstracted from reality. Yet the reality couldn't be more plain.
The story is well known: Lear, late in life, decides effectively to retire and to divide his kingdom between his three heirs, daughters Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. Unaccountably he offers to divide the kingdom according to the degree of love each daughter can express.
Goneril and Regan, dishonestly effusive in their statements, gain half a kingdom each while the youngest, loyal and honest Cordelia, is banished as a punishment for her inability to embellish the truth. Lear’s trust is betrayed by his eldest daughters whose cruelty escalates into unimaginable violence. Cordelia, despite rejection, remains the dutiful daughter, retaining love and loyalty. In a subplot The Earl of Gloucester is betrayed by his illegitimate son Edmund who frames Edgar, the legitimate son.
The intimate setting of the Quays theatre combined with the familiar vowel sound of the cast also aid clarity of delivery. The difficulties of Shakespeare disappear; the language is intelligible and the betrayals and loyalties not too far removed from the everyday experience of television drama, soaps and reality shows. Key scenes work really well. Gloucester’s plunge from a non-existent cliff is funny, sad and convincing and placing the blinding scene out of sight at the back of the stage allows the audience to concentrate on Regan’s delight in such torture.
All the performances are strong. Andrew Vincent as Oswald is particularly entertaining and versatile actor Fine Time Fontayne a lucid yet convincing Fool. Catherine Kinsella is a sympathetic Cordelia while Nicola Sanderson’s Regan and Helen Sheals’ Goneril display contempt and cruelty throughout. Andrew Vincent gives Kent the essential dignity and loyalty while as half-brothers Al Bollands as Edmund and Jack Wilkinson as Edgar are interesting and well-contrasted. Unfortunately on press night the sound balance could have been better and some of Edgar’s lines during the storm sequence were lost, as were a few of John Branwell’s lines in an otherwise exceptionally solid and versatile performance as Gloucester.
This is far from a highly emotional Lear. Perhaps it’s the clarity of the story telling or the down-to-earth approach of the characters, led weight by the northern voices, which produce this. There’s an air that these things happen, that you reap what you sow, that loyalty should survive mistakes and disaster, and that live goes on. Even the regular references to ‘the Gods’ are just remarks. Gloucester’s “As flies to wanton boys are we to Th' gods, they kill us for their sport,” is not a wail of despair, but a statement of fact.
Barrie Rutter’s Lear again is realistic; a man once of power and rank, diminished first by failing intellectual powers, making decisions on an emotional basis, before losing his decision-making abilities altogether. Rutter’s performance emphasises the man rather than the king.
It’s an interesting and certainly accessible production. My only real quibble would be that with an 8.00pm start I was expecting a heavily cut version. It isn’t and at two hours and forty minutes it’s pushing the boundaries for some theatre goers with distances to travel, especially if using public transport.
Northern Broadsides production of King Lear runs at The Quays Theatre, The Lowry until Sat 9 May.
