Frank Langella, King Lear at CFT
Yesterday the Spouse and I took the day off work, abandoned the kids to school and nursery and went to Chichester to see Frank Langella as King Lear in the Minevra Theatre. This was, I'm rather ashamed to say, the first time I'd ever seen Lear in any sort of performance, nor had I read it thus many aspects of the story were new to me. I knew the basic premise of the play, it was a traegy so I expected some deaths at the end, but many of the twists and turns on the way I had no idea about.
The Minevera was set in about a 270 round formation. The set was minimal (the main prop being the throne borrowing the the RNT) but very textural (cobbles, wood, stone, tiles). As we were row D, it was rather up front and personal. The cast were, as you would expect, rather good. Harry Melling played a youthful fool, bringing a hint of the autistic spectrum into his charcterisation. In particular I thought Lauren O'Niell as Regan, Max Bennet as Edmund and Steven Pacey as Kent were superb, although that's not to say the rest of the cast weren't also strong performers. Langella himself brought me to tears in his final scenes. Although ocassionally in his earlier hurumphings were reminscent of his Nixon, his thinderous temper filled the small theatre and his later descent into senility was truly pathethic.
The only bum note in the whole production was Isabella Laughland as Cordelia. playing a corpse was not a stretch for her, but apprently playing Cordelia as anything other than a pious plank was. Cordelia should have bite and the courage of her convictions, instead her monologues were flat, colourless and, at times, barely audible. It may have been a very off-day for her (given she's won outstanding newcomer awards) but only showed anything like promise when acting directly with Langella, as if he could pull a performance out of her.
All in all 'though, a production I would happily sit through again. It's off to Broklyn once it is finished at Chichester.