Lear Review – The Tragedy of This Matriarchal King is Personal, Not Political | stage

YYou know when you walk into a room and then forget why you walked in? Maureen Beatty does just that at the beginning of this gender-swapped version of Shakespeare’s tragedy. She strides forward, catches herself, half-steps back, turns on her heels, and goes out another way entirely. Soon after, she takes a moment to remember her daughter’s name, Goneril. Deep into the second half, she’s sitting in a wheelchair, speaking painfully, and we know where it all began.

However, this Queen Lear can also be sharp. Dividing her kingdom between Goneril (Jenny Hulse), Regan (Lindsay Campbell) and Cordelia (Ailsa Davidson), she is an articulate woman who expects respect.

But what kind of respect is it? Her tone when Cordelia let her down was less grandiose than stubborn, that of a frustrated mother abused by her equally stubborn daughter. Lear, playing as a man, can romanticize Cordelia; Played as a woman here, she’s too poised for that. Although she calls Cordelia her favorite, you can imagine they’ve clashed like this before, just as Goneril and Regan would forever exchange meaningful glances.

If family dynamics emerge in Veen den Hertog’s modern costume production – set in a rustic pile, designed by Emma Bailey, with paintings on the wall and wires sticking out – it is at the expense of wider public tragedy. This Lear is straight-talking, not grandiose, and hardly the type who, with an entourage of 100, is bothered by downsizing. Her madness, which comes quickly, is more a metaphor for the decline of her home than a symbol of the fall of a great king. Even at its weakest, it feels more sad and personal than earth-shattering.

This is partly due to a lack of definition in the relationships around her. Forbes Mason relishes the role of blind Gloucester, playing him with wit and gusto, but his devotion to Lear seems to come out of nowhere, as does the sexual connivance between Edmund (Robin Joseph) and the machinations of the two older sisters. It is not the clarity of delivery, but the understatement of plot points that makes this great drama seem more fragile than tragic.