review of King Lear at the New Spruce Theater
OK OK OK so on Wednesday I went and saw King Lear (I was supposed to go see it on Tuesday but it was canceled because of a storm- how ironic)- and now I shall tell you all about this production
Side Note- I waited a few days too long to write about this and chances are I forgot a bunch of stuff by now- sorry about that
Overall Opinion on the play as a whole:
-Every single actor was incredible and the stage (which was sort of non-existent) was set up/ designed really well. Acting and Stage design (I’d call it set design but there really wasn’t much of a set) gets a 10/10.
-as for the overall stage directions, they were neat most of the time but more noticeably, very unexpected. But that made it better (more on this in the more detailed section of the review). They get a 9/10
-as for what was cut/changed from the original text of the play? Yeah that gets a -3/10. Just. I’ll explain this in a sec but. Ugh. Not happy about the changes.
OK NOW FOR THE MORE DETAILED REVIEW:
(I’m gonna try to go in order of the play, but if I remember more stuff later I’ll add it in at the end)
-The actress playing Cordelia was so pretty I can’t she was gorgeous (all the lear sisters were pretty but specifically the one playing Cordelia
-ALSO Cordelia was 100% ready to punch something the whole time
-and the tone she said her lines in 100% conveyed “oh wow dad I can’t believe you’re actually doing something this stupid Wow you can’t be serious. Oh OH HECK YOU’RE SERIOUS”
-at the opposite end of the acting spectrum, the actor who played Gloucester was apparently so forgettable that I can’t picture any scenes he was in. I just don’t remember A single thing he did. I mean I know logically the story of King Lear but I just can’t picture this guy. I’m trying to remember what he looked like and I just can’t.
-in 1.2 when Edmund’s totally trying to hind the letter, he blatantly drops it in front of Gloucester, and then tries to pick it up and drops it again before putting it in his pocket
-OH WAIT before I forget let me mention the doublecasting! SO France and Edgar were played by the same guy, Albany and Oswald were played by the same guy, and Cordelia and Servant 2 were played by the same person. Then any random messengers or whatever were played by the same background actor. And The Gentleman was cut entirely.
-Regan and Cornwall were 100% a great ship here- every time they were together it was clear they loved each other- they were normally holding hands or something. On the other hand Goneril and Albany never stood as close together as Regan and Cornwall did.
-Kent’s insult to Oswald was delivered entirely like this and that made it 10x funnier
-AND OSWALD. Let me just say. He was the #1 best actor there. His whole thing in this performance was that he’s absolutely terrified of everyone. In his fight with Kent he has a regular sword and Kent has a small knife, and Kent just calmly walks up to him and knocks the sword out of his hand. And Oswald backs away and covers his head/face in self defense as Kent continues approaching him, and Kent just calmly hands Oswald his sword back, which he eventually takes. AND STILL LOSES THE FIGHT.
-just. Comedy.
-and in Oswald VS Edgar, Edgar was unarmed and Oswald had his sword, and Edgar just kinda grabbed the sword from him and stabbed him.
-WAIT I STILL DIDN’T MENTION THE BEST FIGHT. Edmund vs Edgar round 1 (ie the fake fight Edmund has them do for Gloucester to overhear). Edmund’s all like “draw! seem to defend yourself!” And Edgar has no idea what’s going on so he kinda motions “wait what?”. Edmund doesn’t have the patients for that so he grabs a second sword and sword fights himself while Edgar’s just standing there.
-and now let me mention The Fool
-who used his ukulele for comedic effects (idk how to phrase that, but what I mean is he’d do the ukulele equivalent of the drum’s ba dum tss whenever something funny happened)
-OH ALSO they would break the forth wall every five seconds
-best example of it was when Kent was like “I have seen better faces in my time”, he made a big show of examining the audience
-ALSO. at the end when Albany was accusing Edmund of treason and all that, Edmund went “oh yeah? You wanna see treason? I’ll show you treason!” And started making out with Goneril right in front of him. So. Good for him.
-when Cordelia was about to be lead away to prison she punched the guard in the stomach and tried to get away. So. VERY good for her.
- NOW ONTO THE STUFF I DON’T LIKE THAT THEY CHANGED
-they cut Curan
-they cut Edmund’s opening lines in act 5 (where he says something like “hey has Albany made up his mind yet about the battle plans? Because he keeps changing his mind and it’s annoying”). Yeah this is a pretty minor complaint, but I always felt like that line sort of establishes him as a person leading the war, and therefore makes the whole argument with Albany in 5.3 make more sense.
-also they changed Cornwall and Regan VS Servant 1, by having Cornwall stab servant 1, Servant 1 fake dead, Cornwall turns around to talk to Regan or something, Servant 1 gets up and grabs the knife and stabs Cornwall, they both die. Which takes away Regan’s only kill.
-and earlier in that same scene Cornwall did the whole “I’m gonna kiss you so you shut up for a bit” thing, which was fine but combined with taking away Regan’s only kill it made Regan come across as meeker than I would have liked.
-AND ONTO THE ABSOLUTE WORST CHANGE THEY MADE-
-in 5.3 when Edgar shows up to fight Edmund and before the fight they ask him “who are you”, he’s like “yeah I’m Edgar I’m here to fight Edmund, my brother.” And then they fight. And they cut all of Edmund and Edgar’s conversation afterward because it’s all irrelevant now that everyone including Edmund knew it was Edgar from the start.
Ok yeah I think that’s it (unless I come back and edit this later)