It was time for a spontaneous visit. Rush tickets in hand, off we went to see King Lear at Stratford. It's been a while. Here is my amateur review.
The stage!
Nice. As typical at the Festival Theatre's "thrust stage", clever and pretty carpentry is built on a fairly small area. It gives enough changing 3D space for for actors to inhabit. Several panels quietly flip or slide to and fro between scenes. Well, quietly, except for an anachronistic scifi woosh/zoom sound played on the PA while the changes are going on.
The story!
I must confess I was not familiar with King Lear before attending the show. I heard some basic plot outlines, but have not studied it. Thus, approaching the story as a newbie, it was confusing. People dressed and sounded too similar to make clear who was who. Maybe dear old Shakespeare is to blame, with few "establishing shots" that we'd see in a movie.
The sound!
What sound? Other than some recorded music played rarely, the sound was all acoustic. Given the shape of the stage, the size of the auditorium, and the sheer number of people, actors had to project their voices to make themselves heard. They had to keep turning around so that at least every other line could be heard by the other half of the audience. With such a dialogue-heavy play, all lines matter!
Please, for the love of Shakespeare, please, put a mic on your actors. Not only could we all hear their words - but then they can stop yelling all the time. They may be able to - gasp - express things more quietly. They could whisper their torment. They could cry and sniff. They could rage and snarl. They could have a proper dynamic range. This is routine for other plays at Stratford, so I wonder what they were thinking this time.
The acting!
Paul Gross is a star. He carried the show and stole all his scenes. He looked alive down there. So did one or two more folks.
And then there are others. There was a generally high-school-show level of performance from many of the secondary players. So many dead stationary poses, swapping places every 30 seconds with stationary posers at mirrored positions. So much speech-giving, so little gesturing, moving, expressing, or even normal speaking. Maybe it's hopeless to look for it sitting a hundred feet away, but was hoping to see subtle humanity. Who caused this? The director?
The effects!
Cute. Scene transitions were often accompanied by shaped light fields whooshing this way or that. The famous storm scene at Act 3 was decorated with a clever & beautiful representation of rain: a stream of little translucent plastic? pellets poured on top of the King from the ceiling. It was reminiscent of the Truman Show rain scene, except the King was in on it so he didn't move. Effective!
Not long after this, Paul Gross partook in a weird stunt that goes by in half a second: he is violently yanked by a cable/harness, pulled into the "hovel". There was neither a dramatic runup nor a payoff! Just a sudden jerk, Gross flying backward into what we hope was a safe landing out of sight, with his head and appendages dislocated. It looked dangerous - and unnecessary, given the lack of dramatic context. The show just went on as if nothing happened, with the King crawling back into sight a few seconds later.
The diversity!
Of course there was a "land acknowledgement" at the start of the show, paraphrased and Emotively Recited by Mr. Cimolino. As a part of Stratford's "anti-racism", or maybe not as a part, the director and several of the performers were black. That's cool if they were all chosen by merit, as opposed to discriminatory preferences as a part of said "anti-racism". Oh, to be a fly on the wall at the Stratford meetings where such things are said or unsaid.
The final straw!
Stratford made Shakespeare boring. One dreads the possibility that this is at some level on purpose.
How it started, in 2009 and 2011:
How 210 minutes of black belt grading went:
Obligatory post-grading photo. Congratulations to the boys, and to Sensei Erik Croft and Senpai Marcia Schnepf as well as all their other teachers - David Turkoski, Tracy Warrener, and many more!
Obligatory belt ceremony photos ten days later. Thanks to O'Sensei Turkoski for visiting, and congratulations to Sensei Schnepf on her promotion too!
