KING LEAR (UK Actors Support Network)*****

 

By Louise 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1hzjxF88nA

Available until: Unknown

King Lear is the latest play in a long series of Zoom plays which have been presented by UK Actors Support Network throughout lockdown. Other highlights have included well-known plays like The Winter’s Tale and The Importance of Being Earnest, as well as plays I hadn’t heard of like Hindle Wakes.

All these plays were produced in aid of Acting for Others, a really good charity which has supported actors throughout lockdown. There has been a lot of online theatre which I have enjoyed a lot, but although it is a good opportunity for actors to perform the plays they love with other actors, they have often given their time for free in a time when it has been difficult to find work and I think Acting for Others has given actors a lot of support which they have really needed.

It has also been great for theatre fans to enjoy a new way of presenting plays, watch plays which we haven’t had the opportunity to see before and maybe most importantly for me got to know lots of really good actors I might never have heard of without digital theatre.

It’s been a really horrible and sad time for theatre, but there have been so many good things too and this definitely includes the Support British twitter account run by John Craggs for actors who need support and the wonderful plays they have produced.

King Lear is a very complicated play with lots of different characters who come and go and join up with different people, but director Andrew Hilton has made everything so clear. The characters are really well-performed so you can really get to know them and sympathise with nearly all of them, though obviously some a lot more than others. The poetic language is read very beautifully, but the actors also make it very clear what everything means so it is easy to follow and understand it.

A lot of the parts which are difficult to watch are toned down so they are not so upsetting. This doesn’t always happen in digital theatre, but I think it is a really good thing that some online productions tone things down and some don’t as it gives you two different experiences of the plays. The more visually upsetting ones are harder to watch, but productions like this one have a greater sort of emotional depth so it becomes more about empathising with the characters than having your own emotional reaction to it. I don’t think one is better than the other, though. I think it is a really positive thing to have both kinds of production.

The cast is really good. David Horovitch who also played Leontes in The Winter’s Tale for this company is a really outstanding King Lear. Whether he’s mentally unwell, sad, frightened or being completely unreasonable like he is at the start, it is a brilliant performance with so much attention to detail in the vocal and physical acting. His Lear is such a complete human being with lots of different parts to his personality and even though the performance is very consistent, there is a really strong sense of Lear changing in response to all the terrible things that happen to him.

Richard O’Callaghan who also appeared in The Winter’s Tale as well as Dracula also makes a very welcome return to the company. He plays Gloucester and it’s another really great performance. Gloucester is very different from Lear, but this production really shows the parallels between them and the way they treat their children. Mr O’Callaghan really makes you think about Gloucester as a man who has made bad mistakes as a husband and father, rather than just being a victim of Edmund’s lies and a really terrible violent attack. 

Rory Kinnear has a strong, intelligent presence as Edmund. You can see his manipulation tactics, but you can also see how plausible he seems to other people. Paul Brendan shows Edgar’s kindness as well as his gullibility (which I think is sweet) and Francesca Zoutwelle is a gentle but determined Cordelia who has just as much strength and passion in her way as the cruel Goneril and Regan, played by Dorothea Myer-Bennett and Gemma Lawrence.

Nicholas Le Prevost shows that the Duke of Kent is another great role when given to a really brilliant actor and Nadia Williams is a fun and quirky Fool. I also really liked Catharine Humphreys as the Doctor because she was really reacting to everything in her scene without distracting from it. It is a really great cast and I enjoyed watching all of them a lot.

I hope the brilliant actors involved in this company will perform more in-person theatre in the future because I’m sure they miss it, but I also hope the UK Actors Support Network will perform more plays as I really do enjoy watching them a lot.