THE RAW POWER OF EMOTION
The Times, Thursday July 12 1990
By Benedict Nightingale
The National and Renessaince theatres will do well if they produce anything
as fresh as this, the first of the summer's unwonted Lears. Nicholas Hytner's
production combines intelligence and power of feelings; and at its heart is a
performance which demonstrates that John Wood, not withstanding his surename,
is a magnificent conductor of electricity.
First the odd quibble. I have no quarrel with the mix of golden dressing
gowns, Victorian greatcoats, modern jackets and medieval armour, or with a
retinue of knights that looks like a wandering rabble in revolutionary
Russia. This serves the function of evoking all human eras, not one in
particular. I had more trouble with the set, a vast turning crate whose
bottom opens to reveal a stoney pothole for Poor Tom, and whose inner walls
are a stange shade of turquoise. That may make a suitable space for Goneril's
drawing room; less so for the heat, even with a diamond encrusted sky,
revolving behind it.
This is too abstract for a production, one of whose strength is its
turbulence. In no previous Lear have I been so aware of unruly feelings
gusting this way and that, then suddenly transforming themselves into gales,
or tempests. The production is about confused people destroyed by their
incomprehensible emotions or, as with Wood's massively erratic Lear,
struggling through to new ones.
What a father he must have been. The effects of long abuse are evident in
his daughters. Alex Kingston's Cordelia has become rebellious, bloody-minded
and rejects Lear almost more tham he does her. Estelle Kohler's Goneril and
Sally Dexter's Regan, seem still to want the love of this old, impossible
man. When they make reasonable requests perfectly nicely, he flies into
another absurd fury. It is fashionable nowadays to allow us to see the
"bad" daughters' point of view, but rarely as strongly as here. Both of
them seem badly in need of Valium, psychoanalysis, or both. They are
frustrated, exhausted, at the end of a tether which finally breaks,
liberating all that suppressed anger and barely contained madness. Their
evils proliferate, but they, like Goneril and Regan themselves, are
ultimately Lear's fault.
That is apparent at his first entrance. He limps on, sour and growling,
trumpets out whimsical commands, sits in a brooding silence, then suddenly
turns tender and genial. Wood is a mercurial actor capable of great variety;
but he has sometimes managed his transitions imperfectly. His Lear is
changeable and unpredictable; frighteningly so, but also wonderfully so,
since the character must have a potential for rich feeling.
The effect can be subtle. A switch of mood can occur in one sentence. The
line rejecting Cordelia, "would thou not have been born, not to have pleased
me better," begins in rage and ends in defeat, as if Lear already sees his
error. The effect can be more than subtle. Wood is capable of tears and
thunder, ironic glee and strange intensity, as he listenes to the
philosopher, Poor Tom. The ending, as always is horribly painful but hardly
more so than his great wail of "reason not the need," as his daughters try
to replace his knights with a bathchair and attendant nurses. In that cry is
all the protest of one generation ceding power to another.
Norman Rodway's Gloucester, David Troughton's Kent and Linus Roache's Edgar,
a bookworm who discovers hidden parts of himself by adopting the role of a
madman, have their parts to play in the emotional turmoil. The fool is a
woman, Linde Kerr Scott; but she belies gender by playing the part as a
shiny, sharpnosed, androgynous puppet who squeaks and clatters through her
lines, and is literally hung by her back on a hook when she gets tiresome.
That is not one of Hytner's better inventions, since intimate rapport between
Wood and this creature is missing. But never mind. Last night this Lear
lasted four hours; and rarely has so long a time in the theatre passed so
speedily.
(Thanks to Rosaleen, who sent this to me! Mari)