Citizens Theatre
4 stars
There’s a glorious circularity to David Hayman’s return to the Citz
after a twenty year absence in Dominic Hill’s mighty production of
Lear. Where Hayman began his career on the same stage four decades ago
with a unique take on Shakespeare’s mad Danish prince, here he appears
equally unhinged as the elder statesman whose estrangement from his
favourite daughter lurches him into a mid-life crisis that leaves him
with nothing.
It begins with a Hogarthian chorus resembling Occupy protesters
breaking into the palace where the party is in full decadent swing. In
this sense, the economic and class divide of the story is laid-out from
the start, with the chorus punctuating every psychological body-blow
with Paddy Cunneen’s live score played on splintered piano strings and
other bomb-site detritus. Edmund is a initially a hoodied-up student in
search of a cause to legitimise him while his swotty brother Edgar
sprawls himself across the sofa.
If that is a family feud waiting to happen, once Lear’s beloved
Cordelia breaks ties, Lear surrounds himself with parasitic party
people, indulging his wild years with excess before ending up on the
scrap-heap. The image at the end of the first half of him ripping to
shreds bin-bag effigies of his daughters is spine-chilling.
While Lynn Kennedy’s Cordelia becomes penniless and pregnant, Kathryn
Howden’s Goneril and Shauna Macdonald’s Regan are vicious, fur-clad
vultures, with Regan’s sexed-up greed even causing her to stab
Gloucester’s eye out with the heel of her stiletto. If watching Hayman
in tatty long-johns go demented before a crowd of white-coated doctors
is like gazing on the ghost of Citizens past, the final display of
people power looks bravely towards the future.
The Herald, April 26th 2012
ends
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