You’ve seen his picture by now: a weatherbeaten old guy who looks like he’s seeking revenge on the punk who stole his bathrobe. Most Toronto theatregoers are probably no less familiar with King Lear’s story of family betrayal than they are with the new Hart House Theatre production’s poster. At a moment when most are concerned with real life conservative leaders, the story of a fifth-century politician might not seem like the coolest ticket. But Hart House offers a slick, cinematic Lear which embraces the play’s drama and humanity, making a thriller out of a wizened script.
This fast-paced production does everything it can to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. Director Jeremy Hutton makes the most of the web of deceptions which keep Lear’s plot moving. The King’s famous offer to reward his daughters’ love with political power is refracted throughout the play: love is a currency to be counterfeited, and the relationships are so confused that even honest characters must wear disguises. Hutton intersperses scenes with split-second tableaus that hint at the progress of each character’s schemes. The performances are highly energetic and physical, and the violence comes early and often as every character fights for their life. (The physicalization of the language does get a bit literal: there’s more pelvic thrusting in this Lear than in any production of Rocky Horror.) Still, the eagerness in which the actors embrace the humour of Shakespeare’s storytelling adds to the suspense. When Benjamin Blais’s slimy Edmund calmly assures the audience that he has “seen drunkards do worse in sport” while preparing to slice his arm, the ripple of laughter running through the theatre is just as surprising as the abrupt slaps, shifts, and scene changes.
Not that the show isn’t technically impressive. Even Scott Penner’s set keeps you guessing. It starts as a line of pillars and an archway, which obscure half the stage. But during the frequent blackouts they move as nimbly as the actors, as hollow and changeable as the edifices the characters create. Whenever someone drops their act and speaks directly to the audience, time suspends, the others freeze, and backlighting renders the granite transparent. As Lear gradually abandons the social and political structures upon which he’s always depended, the set makes itself scarce.
Lear’s journey from a ruler who conceives of love as a political tool to a desperately grieving father is the heart of this play. Peter Higginson’s dynamic performance makes us pant to keep up with Lear’s rocky spiritual journey. He begins as a swaggering SOB who soaks up his family’s knee-jerk applause and determines the fate his country with a whim and a map. Higginson shows us a complex Lear whose series of self-discoveries leave him cranky and infantilized, comically self-pitying, then utterly liberated, dancing in the flowers and the rain.
When most of us think of modernizing Shakespeare, we think of swapping swords for guns and jerkins for jeans. But this production has no trouble pulling us into a world which is—or at least looks—very different from our own.
Rating: VVVv
