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by William Shakespeare, directed by Joseph Ziegler

Soulpepper Theatre Company, Young Centre, Toronto

October 18, 2006

The two great advantages of Soulpepper’s production of King Lear are Joseph Ziegler’s incisive direction and William Webster’s down-to-earth performance in the title role.  They combine to make this of one the most lucid productions of Shakespeare’s masterpiece you are likely to see.

Set on a bare thrust stage much like Stratford’s Tom Patterson Theatre, Christina Poddubiuk’s costumes combine elements of the present and medieval.  Ziegler’s approach emphasizes the familial over the political side of the story which immediately makes the tragedy more approachable.  Lear is thus less a mythical king than an Everyman initially prey to vanity.  Webster moves masterfully from Lear’s over-confidence in his plan to divide his kingdom among his daughters through fits of anger that gradually increase in force to become fits of insanity as his view of himself collides with ever more gruesome signs of the world’s evil.   Webster excels as this all-too-human Lear, finely and naturalistically detailing his descent to its heart-wrenching conclusion.

Not all performances reach Webster’s calibre.  As Lear’s daughters Nancy Palk is excellent as a vulturine Goneril as is Brenda Robins as a reptilian Regan, against whose rabid ferocity Patricia Fagan’s Cordelia needs to try harder to seem less bland.  Diego Matamoros is a man fighting his own sadness as Lear’s Fool while Stuart Hughes is tough, powerful Kent.  Derek Boyes’s growing concern as the virtuous Albany contrasts neatly with C. David Johnson’s growing brutality as Cornwall.  In the subplot Les Carlson is too kindly to capture the mean streak in Gloucester and not a strong enough counterpart to Lear.  Jonathan Goad mumbles in a slyly understated performance as the villainous Edmund while David Storch as the well-meaning Edgar obscures too many lines in feigning Poor Tom’s madness.  These flaws aside, this is the most clearly presented and most movingly acted Lear in Ontario in well over a decade.       

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2006-09-14.

Photo: William Webster. ©2006 Sandy Nicholson.