Lear and His Daughters at the Rosemary Branch Theatre in Islington
By Carolin Kopplin
Lear
Lear and his daughters fight it out in the swinging
sixties.
Bobby Fincher, the founder of Spadra Bus Theatre Company,
transports King
Lear into the swinging sixties as the youth rebellion
begins. The 1960s were typified by a fraught division between the
old and the young. Fincher sees this as a perfect backdrop for
Lear and his daughters. When the play opens Lear is bestowing his
kingdom on “younger strengths” but are they ready to take the
world into their own hands? And is Lear ready to give it
up?
Fincher interprets the tale as a rebellion of youth against age
and tradition and compares it with the rebellion and sexual
revolution of the 1960s. Sadly, this idea does not quite work. It
remains unclear what Fincher thought he could bring to the play
by setting it in the 1960s. The actors wear sixties costumes and
there is the occasional slide show depicting relevant events of
the era such as the student rebellion, the deaths of Robert
Kennedy and Martin Luther King jr. or the Vietnam War accompanied
by music - mostly by the Beatles. Lear liberates his daughters
from his paternal care and empowers Goneril and Regan by dividing
his kingdom between them. True. But why is Goneril’s and Regan’s
affair with Edmund compared to the sexual revolution of the
1960s? I don’t see the connection. These extramarital affairs had
been going on for centuries. Interpreting their desire for Edmund
as Goneril’s and Regan’s “sexual liberation” is stretching it
somewhat. It does not help that the play was cut down to a length
of less than two hours.
However, it was interesting to see two actors playing Lear.
Robert Rowe portrays the king with quiet authority and
stubbornness. Chris Bearne takes over when Lear is beginning to
lose his mind giving a very intense and touching performance. The
only character who truly took me back to the 1960s was Suzanne
Kendall’s Foole. With her shrill excitement the Foole reminded me
of Barbra Streisand in her best comic roles of that
era.
The production is presented by the Spadra Bus Theatre Company and was produced and co-directed by Suzanne Kendall and Hannah Mercer who also perform in the play. They received support from guest director Luke Dixon of Nomad Theatre.
16 to 24 February Tue – Fri 7.30 pm Sat and Sun 3.00, 6.30
pm
Tickets: £ 12 / £ 10 (concessions)
BOX OFFICE: 020 7704 6665
The Rosemary Branch, 2 Shepperton Road, London N1 3DT
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