Gods, Stand Up For Bastards!
Sometimes it seems like I spend half my life in the Barbican. Obviously I only spend a few hours there but I was back again for Maly Drama Theatre's production of King Lear. For some reason whenever I go to see productions with surtitles I end up with restricted seating. This wouldn't have been too bad except the surtitles were fairly poorly synched with the actors. It was the first night but still.
I enjoyed it though, despite an unfamiliarity with the text. My two companions had studied the text and seen the play performed several times and possibly got more out of it. I, on the other hand, had the benefit of fresh eyes and no preconceptions since by all reports this was a fairly unusual reading of the play. Here Lear is a mad, bad bastard and the audience's sympathy is decidedly with his daughters. Some went so far as to describe it as a "radical re-interpretation of the text". This was a bit of a problem for the neophyte though. The text, particularly in the final acts, was brutally truncated, to the point where, without previous knowledge, the plot was mystifying. Then again, I have yet to see a Shakespearean battle that I found comprehensible.
So I don't have anything meaningful to say about the play except that I found Maly Drama Theatre as impressive as their reputation and I wish I'd seen their Uncle Vanya in 2005. Bloody moody though, the Russians.
I enjoyed it though, despite an unfamiliarity with the text. My two companions had studied the text and seen the play performed several times and possibly got more out of it. I, on the other hand, had the benefit of fresh eyes and no preconceptions since by all reports this was a fairly unusual reading of the play. Here Lear is a mad, bad bastard and the audience's sympathy is decidedly with his daughters. Some went so far as to describe it as a "radical re-interpretation of the text". This was a bit of a problem for the neophyte though. The text, particularly in the final acts, was brutally truncated, to the point where, without previous knowledge, the plot was mystifying. Then again, I have yet to see a Shakespearean battle that I found comprehensible.
So I don't have anything meaningful to say about the play except that I found Maly Drama Theatre as impressive as their reputation and I wish I'd seen their Uncle Vanya in 2005. Bloody moody though, the Russians.