Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
Auckland Arts Festival
Open stage: Not King Lear
Hobson Street Theatre Company
Until March 10
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
Goethe once noted that “Ein alter Mann ist stets ein König Lear” – an old man is a King Lear, meaning that the problems which Lear faced were the same for all old men.
Lear’s problems were not necessarily of his own making as events and people conspired to take advantage of him and he found himself virtually alone, deprived of home, authority and family.
This gradual loss of place in society is central to a new play “Not King Lear” which is directed by Adrain Jackson who has worked for many years Royal Shakespeare Company and with people experiencing street homelessness in London
In this latest play he has created a playful yet serious retelling of the story of an old man in conflict with his children, who gives away his authority and falls into homelessness and mental ill-health.
“Not King Lear” has had input from and is performed by members of the Hobson Street Theatre Company which works in partnership with the Auckland City Mission, with an aim to tell stories that are based on real life experiences, addressing social issues.
There is level of sophistication to the play that is rewarding both in terms of the ideas it explores about relationships and homelessness but also in its approach to theatre.
In making use of Shakespeare’s original text, they are able to background some of the issues with a few passages from the play and some brief character and plot outlines. They present most of the Act I dialogue of the speeches of the three sisters which includes the powerful speech by Lear.
The cast also use this as an opportunity for jokes about the characters with Regan being referred to as Vegan and Cordelia as Corduroy. There are other parts of the play which are dealt with in a light hearted and ironic way while others are eloquent and insightful.
The players are uneven in their acting skills but there is a passion and honesty to all the performances which make for a rewarding theatrical experience. Some of the actors are brilliant with the one playing Lear providing a profound and expressive interpretation of the character.
The play has elements of Shakespeare’s approach to drama with the idea of the play within play as we see in Hamlet or Midsummers Nights Dream while another sequence features is a Men’s Group which touches on the issue of estrangement.
The audience participation is at a very different level. Early on the audience was asked to take out their cell phones, divided up into groups who then have to find things on their phones which will get used later in the show. So people had to search for Branch, Climate change, Storm and Trumpet. These then became the source of sounds which audience could then contribute to the soundscape. So when the King first appears the Trumpets let their trumpets blast away.
There is some very effective staging as in the final sequences where projected images of the mean streets of Auckland are used as a counterpoint to Lear’s blasted heath and the filmed images of the homeless pushing shopping trolleys is replicated with a shopping trolley being moved around the stage.
The inclusion of this work by the Hobson Street Theatre Company alongside international productions in the Auckland Arts Festival is to be commended and shows that New Zealand theatre has a crucial role to play in addressing social and personal issues as well as reaching new audiences.
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