Yes, it was worth 200 dollars to watch King Lear at the Esplanade. It was a harrowing performance (though I was not as moved by the play as I am by Hamlet, particularly Kenneth Branagh's version). Mr. Mckellen was so dynamic and forceful as King Lear that he at times overshadowed the rest of the cast, especially poor Cordelia whose voice seemed a little hoarse after the previous two nights' performances. Yet perhaps it was needful for the tragedy's title role to be so. The audience was absorbed into feeling the magnitude of his tragedy, so harsh a punishment for mankind's folly.


Mckellen looked bewildered when the audience gave him a standing ovation (I had to stand up too because I couldn't see). They really appreciated the play and the performance. I think the other cast members deserved a stand too, they were so good, but people really only know Mckellen because he played Gandalf and Magneto. Oh so sad. But I can't deny that he puts a level of energy and emotion into the character that you don't see in many actors. I admire his control, for in playing the mad king perhaps one of the most challenging things is getting into Lear's pattern of witless, violent energy alternating with the pathetic, feeble realisation of just what--and who--he has lost.

Oh, forgot to mention...the play is set in 19th century Russia--the costumes were a blend of Cossack and European, I think. The men wore high-waisted breeches and had round Cossack fur caps, with white shirts predominant. Lear had a red military jacket (something like the above, but ankle-length). The women wore corset gowns with overcoats. I reckon Trevor Nunn just thought he would stick with the Russian theme, since he was also running Chekov's "The Seagulls" at the same time.

The set rivalled the costumes for attention to detail. T. Nunn and his artistic team do not leave anything out. As most of the action in the first half occured in the King's palace and other royal abodes, the balcony had red velvet drapes. These were dramatically dropped as intermission began, as if to signify a darker, more primitive phase in the play with Lear's incipient madness. The lighting, too, progressed from a bright to a dismal, sickly yellow, brightening again to dizzying white flashes in the storm scene.

Unfortunately I was not in a very sympathetic mood during the play. Once upon a time, Gloucestor's despairing cry, "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport," would have provoked a shudder, evoked a feeling of abandonment or the sense that lives' tragedies' are incomprehensible at best and unlivable at worst.

All in all I had a lovely time. Managed to catch the last train back, too.