eastwickpress

a review by Alex Brooks

Hubbard Hall has opened a new production of King Lear, Shakespeare’s epic drama of greed, power, madness and family succession. It’s an ambitious undertaking, and Hubbard Hall proves itself once again the Little Company That Could with this creditable production. John Hadden, Artistic Director of Hubbard Hall, has managed to bring in an impressive collection of talent from outside the area to build this show.

Ava Roy co-directs with Hadden and stars as Cordelia and the Fool. Her loving Cordelia and wise and rueful Fool are the emotional anchors of this show. In the topsy turvy world of King Lear, in which the Fool is the wise man, the former King descends into madness and the King-to-be feigns madness to save himself from the designs of evil men, the darkness of the play is happily mitigated when the good characters, Cordelia, the Fool and Edgar, have a strong presence.

Young James Udom is a dynamic Edgar, making an admirable hero of a character that is often lost in the spectacle of his turn as Poor Tom.

Hadden’s Lear is understated. I missed the titanic rage, against himself and against the hard hearted world, that I think of as central to the character. In the first half, the arrogance, the imperious moods, the curses and sarcasm that Lear spews at those who thwart his will, seem watered down. Yet in the second half of the play, Hadden’s approach works better, when Lear’s madness leaves him befuddled and bewildered. It reaches its finest moment when Lear exhorts Cordelia to come away with him to prison where “We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage” to tell tales and laugh and hear “poor rogues” talk of court news.

Carmen-Maria Mandley and Myka Plunkett bring a sinister energy to the evil sisters Goneril and Regan, and Scott Renzoni does a fine job with the good but weak Albany, who tries ineffectually to turn his wife Goneril from her evil ways.

The action of the play takes place in the center of the space, with audience on all four sides, so there is no backdrop, and the sets are pretty minimal. In general this works well, but it was perhaps carried too far in the storm scene, which was signaled only by a little water thrown into the actors’ hair. A sound of rainfall or a lighting effect suggesting rain or some such thing would have been a welcome addition. Someone who did not know the play might not have realized that the King was making his way through a violent storm bareheaded.

But let’s put such quibbles aside and celebrate our local company, which has the chutzpah to take on difficult classics like this one and the ability to bring to life one of the high points of Shakespearean drama.