Theatre Royal Bath Summer Season - Candida and King Lear

It was another exciting summer in the Social Programme Office at the University of Bath's English Language Centre - so much so that I feel like I'm only just recovering from it now! Like last year, I was lucky enough to meet some wonderful people from all over the world and enjoy sharing British culture and landmarks with them. One particular highlight for me was being able to take my students to the beautiful Theatre Royal twice this summer, even if I was underwhelmed by the two very different plays themselves: George Bernard Shaw's Candida and Shakespeare's King Lear.

Candida

Although in recent years it has been eclipsed by Shaw's triumph Pygmalion, Candida (1898) was quite the hit in its day, questioning Victorian ideas about love and marriage with a side order of socialism. The play centres around a love triangle: popular priest and orator, Reverend James Mavor Morell (Jamie Parker), whose seemingly perfect live unravels when a young poet who he had taken pity on (Eugene Marchbanks, played by Frank Dillane) arrives and announces that he is in love with James' beautiful young wife Candida (Charity Wakefield). While considerations of the practicalities of socialism rumble in the background, most of the action is the conflict between the two males, making it clear that neither affords Candida any agency in her own love life. The most interesting part of the play for me, therefore, was how Candida deals with this situation, eventually resisting the Victorian ideal of female passivity that both men unwittingly force upon her.

I expressed concerns about Jamie Parker in my review of Henry V and his performance in Candida left me with similar doubts. I can't work out if he's just a boring actor, or whether he is intentionally accentuating the staid nature of the character, making it clear why Candida might seek entertainment elsewhere. By contrast, Dillane (famous for playing Tom Riddle in Harry Potter), was very full on, to the point of being highly irritating at times, but it worked for the nervous, conflicted young poet. Of the main cast, I was most impressed with Charity Wakefield's (Land Fothergill from Any Human Heart) sensitive portrayal of the title character. Overall, Candida was at turns funny and thought provoking, but lacking the spark that makes Pygmalion such an enduring hit.

King Lear

Regular readers will know that I'm quite familiar with King Lear after following Cardiff University's Act One as they took their adaptation to Edinburgh. However, my students were happy to learn that even I struggled to follow every word of this incredibly dense tragedy. The main attraction for this particular adaptation was David Haig (Four Weddings and a Funeral) in the title role. The dramatic weight of the role was quite a departure from Haig's usual comedic roles, and at times he seemed to struggle with it - just one of the many let-downs of this production. A particular strength of King Lear is how the universal themes of greed and ambition can be adapted to an enormous range of settings, but for me the 1960s East End gangsters premise which had seemed so promising just didn't pay off. There were some strong performances and the notoriously difficult eye-gouging scene was impressively depraved and gory, but at a certain point the production just seemed to lose its way. Rather than the emotional punch the end is supposed to provide, this Lear's eventual denouement left us feeling only relief.

Find out more about the Theatre Royal and their upcoming attractions here.

Preparing King Lear for Edinburgh Fringe

Trained astrophysicist Piers Horner is now dealing with stars of a very different kind, those of Act One, as he prepares their production of King Lear for Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I pulled him away from his busy schedule to discuss what it takes to get a production to Edinburgh and how this King Lear has changed since its Cardiff première. 

Act One's dystopian take on King Lear made its début to critical acclaim at the Cardiff YMCA in February (read my original review here). Now, thanks to funding from the Students Union, it's off to a much more exciting venue at the Edinburgh Fringe, but not without a few changes. In case you missed it earlier this year, this is a King Lear for a modern audience, set in the aftermath of nuclear war, as rival gangs vie for power. What impressed me most about the original production was that it was thoroughly gripping, modern, and relevant, while retaining Shakespearian language. Key to the show's success is the incredible set design by Horner - graffiti-covered, dark and menacing - and music by Nick Cotton, a haunting blend of classical and contemporary, which both compliment the sense of foreboding and accentuated violence of the piece. As the stage in Edinburgh will be thrust instead of proscenium, dark corners and extremely graphic fight scenes will be more of a challenge, but one that Act One certainly won't shy away from!

A more arduous task will be cutting King Lear down to just an hour and 15 minutes - the time allotted by the venue. The February version felt succinct at about two hours, especially given how much happens in Shakespeare's original Lear. Many hours of rewrites by Horner and co-director Madison Fowler have been needed to make the play coherent with so much cut out, but the end result is a pacey Lear sure to attract new audiences, perhaps otherwise put off by the imposing length of the original play. 

Lear (James Davies) gets angry

As any student knows, May and June is probably the worst time to have any other commitments, what with final essays, exams and then preparing to move out for the summer. It's certainly not ideal for putting together a play for Edinburgh. Act One, however, are an industrious bunch and won't let a little thing like getting a degree get in the way of preparing to take Edinburgh by storm. They have been beavering away on their futuristic King Lear, culminating in a week long 'Lear Camp'. From practising projection in the park to make-up sessions, every aspect of Lear must be worked out before the cast go their separate ways for the summer. Characterisation has always been of utmost importance for the cast and creators of this production, and the focus of intense work during Lear Camp. For Horner, it is imperative that the characters suit both the actors and the dystopian setting. In the original production, the Cornwall just wasn't quite right, so he has now metamorphosed from a thug to a sharp, sexual sadist. Within the context of the production, I'm sure this will make for a much more engaging character. Sadly Oliver Ferriman, who was so impressive as Edgar, has prior commitments preventing him from going to Edinburgh. Edgar has therefore been reworked to suit Nick McAndrew who takes Ferriman's place - instead of an intensely physical, feral Edgar, McAndrew will bring out the vulnerable side of the character.

Emily Barden gets made up

When they get to Edinburgh, the will have just one day to get set up in the theatre before performing to the demanding Fringe crowd. It's not just any theatre that King Lear is going in to either, but the Monkey House, part of the prestigious Zoo. It's a location any Edinburgh Fringe play would dream of. I'm a complete novice when it comes to how Fringe works, so Piers explained to me that there is no central booking system, rather you contact each venue individually and hope for the best. Having asked for a 60-seat venue for their five-day run, Act One were instead offered a 90-seater, a clear indication that Zoo believe King Lear can draw a crowd. Back in February, it was already a bold and exciting piece. Now with all the extra work of Lear Camp and the added spark of being in Edinburgh, I'm sure it will be a real treat for any festival-goer.

Cambridge (James Paine) and Gloucester (Dom Gwyther) get gory

King Lear is showing from 12-18 August at 12:15 in Monkey House, Zoo (full details and tickets at here). Act One are also bringing two other productions to Edinburgh:
Wuthering Heights, 13-18, 21:05, the Space on the Mile (tickets), and The Institute, 13-19, 12:45, The Fiddler's Elbow (tickets).


Photos courtesy of Ségolène Scheuer who plays Goneril.

Act One Presents King Lear @ YMCA Cardiff 3/2/12

As Act One’s latest production of King Lear was advertised as “a dramatic re-telling of one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies”, I was sure it would have been rewritten in modern English, and was pleasantly surprised to instead find that directors Madison Fowler and Piers Horner, with their talented cast and crew, succeeded in their mission to create an engaging Lear for the twenty-first century whilst remaining faithful to Shakespeare’s play.

The idea behind the production was to “bring Lear to a wider audience by heightening the violence and raw power of the text”, updating the story from pre-Roman England to a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where Lear is the leader of a gang of survivors and Gloucester an ex-policeman struggling to adapt to the new world. This background is set out for us in the programme which sadly suggests that the Daily Mail survives the end of civilisation, and brought to life though Mikey Boyle’s minimum yet highly effective set design covered with graffiti including a Banksy-esque Grim Reaper. The nightmarish setting is further enhanced by music composed especially for the production by Nick Cotton (@fblockisadj), a dark mixture of classical and techno that perfectly suited the oppressive mood of the piece.

Given the description in the advertising and the ‘strictly over 18s’ rating, I expected a truly graphic production and Act One did not disappoint. The performance began with the very violent murder of Lear’s eldest son and continued with similar scenes dotted throughout the production which made it seem more immediate and gripping. Act One have certainly been taking their stage fighting classes seriously. However, what should have been the most harrowing scene, the gouging of Gloucester’s eyes, instead was messy and distant because of the decision to pre-film the scene and project it onto the stage. While I understand it would be difficult to make this scene work well live, the projection seemed out of place and distracting from the raw power of the rest of the production.

As for the acting, it was generally quite good, but a bit of a mixed bag. A special mention has to be made for Ellie Hepworth playing the Fool who had to spend half an hour on stage alone keeping in character as we took our seats; it was a tough ask and she dealt with it commendably. The central performance of the play, James Davies in the title role, was strong. He rendered Lear’s descent from powerful leader to madman with sensitivity and subtlety. Lawrence Dixon’s rapper inspired portrayal of Edmund was a particular highlight. It could have been an annoying gimmick but actually really worked and suited the scheming and unhinged character perfectly.  As his half-brother Edgar, Oliver Ferriman was also very impressive.  He combined extreme physicality (there seems to be an Act One tradition following the Panto that every production this year must have at least one almost naked male lead) with a genuinely moving performance. Dom Gwyther, as their father Gloucester, gave a very natural, engaging performance, which is sadly more than I can say for some of the other parts. For me the sign of a good actor is when you forget they have a script and it seems the words they are using are their own. Unfortunately, some of the cast fell into the usual trap when performing Shakespeare of thinking that shouting will make the words make more sense instead of really engaging with them, whereas others were competent but just lacking that essential spark.

   

On the whole, Act One produced an engrossing vision of King Lear, thanks to impressive central performances, set-design and music. Their desire to draw in a new audience to Shakespeare by bringing out the violence and the passion of the play was a clear success, as audience members delightedly professed that the production had made them understand and enjoy this complex play for the first time. I look forward to seeing what they do with Measure for Measure in March.