Chris Eldon Lee reviews “King Lear”, which is at Birmingham Repertory Theatre until Saturday 28th of May
“Nothing will come of nothing,” King Lear emphatically informs Cordelia in the first scene of his play. And three and a half hours later, he’d proved right. For, sadly, nothing new emerges from this latest telling of his monumental tale. Great actors will always want to have a crack at Lear, but you do have to be great; and Don Warrington, strangely shorn of charisma, seems to be playing safe; content to just complete the course.
It is his voice that is barking, rather than his mind; delivering the lines with a ‘first serve’ monotony, sounding for all the world like Winston Churchill on one of his ‘black dog’ days. His gait and gestures are those of an aged Telly Tubby. Only in the last five minutes, as he keens over Cordelia’s body, do we sense true sentiment. But it’s too little, too late. Some the audience had left early, as if this was Villa Park rather than Birmingham Rep.
Having assembled a radical black director and a truly multi-racial cast (no tokenism here) I can’t quite see the point of a 50s throwback production. The costumes and most (but not all) of the characters are decidedly retro; an uncoordinated jumble of styles. Mark Springler’s black Albany is desperately declamatory as, to a mercifully lesser extent, are the three black daughters.
On the other hand, Thomas Coombes’ (white) Oswald is an antic-fuelled, foppish, twirling gay; a cross between Rik Mayall and Andrew Aguecheek. Fraser Ayres, as Edmund, puts in the best performance of the night as an almost Aspergers, slimy social sorcerer; whilst (black) Alfred Enoch makes an excellent, deeply committed fist of his brother Edgar; a part so awful Shakespeare must surely have written for an actor he hated.
What surprised me most about this production is the degree of humour it gave us. Miltos Yerolemou’s waddling, white-faced Fool got laughs I never knew where there. More mentor than jester, his comic timing was superb, his confidentiality with Lear heart- warming, and his wit waspish. And when the lines are so archaic it’s genuinely impossible to raise a smile, he circumnavigates the problem by singing them. Lear also earned some hearty laughs. This put the audience in an unusually merry mood, which meant that the flying eyeballs in the tragical blinding of Gloucester were met with howling Hammer Horror hilarity.
This production has come down from Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre-in-the-round, and director Michael Buffong’s re-blocking is incomplete. The playing area is still circular, with too many actors talking up stage. They’ve also yet to realise that the Birmingham acoustics don’t take kindly to shouting. So, in row K, considerable passages of the play proved inaudible. The persistent background drone didn’t help.
Overall, this production is stoic and static. It’s too old school to be exciting – and the actors far too frequently end up standing like pins at the end of a bowling alley. Oh, for a deadly ball of fire.
Visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk for information about Birmingham Rep.