Anna Burnside reviews ‘a visually and aurally powerful production’.
In a grand drawing room, already half dismantled, Queen Lear summons her family and attendants. She is standing down and splitting up her extensive domain. All her three daughters need do to claim their third is proclaim the extent of their love.
It’s one thing seeing a capricious and narcissistic old king bartering affection for land rights. Seeing a mother show blatant favouritism towards the youngest, Cordelia, then leaving her with nothing when she gives an honest answer, is the first of this production’s many shocks.
In director and adapter Finn den Hertog’s hands, Lear is the story of a disintegrating family first and a kingdom second. Maureen Beattie’s queen starts off channelling Theresa May in a trouser suit. By the end she is in a wheelchair, slurring her words into the collar of her pyjamas.
It’s a tremendous performance of one of Shakespeare’s trickiest roles. The pathos of a vile tyrant humbled by that most inexorable human process - ageing - is not easy to balance, and Beattie brings huge energy and vulnerability to the part.
She’s bolstered by a strong cast, including fellow RSC alumni Forbes Masson showing huge range as Gloucester and Reuben Joseph as a powerful Edmund. Regan (Lindsey Campbell) and Goneril (Jenny Hulse) are each, in their own way, pieces of work. Ailsa Davidson doubles as Cordelia and the Fool, bringing a tinkly light touch to the latter part.
Apart from a misjudged French accent early on, the cast inhabit the language with ease and confidence. Lear has some of the best insults in all of Shakespeare, many of them delivered with relish by Mercy Ojelade’s Kent. I’m not exactly sure what an “eater of broken meats” is, but it’s not a compliment.
The physical violence is also visceral - the show has a movement director as well as a fight director, and it shows.
It’s a visually and aurally powerful production as Emma Bailey’s set disintegrates to match the mental degeneration of Lear. Mark Melville’s soundscape adds texture and atmosphere, while Brighde Chaimbeul’s pipe solo is a clever change of pace in a verbally rich three hours.
More of this please.
Lear performs at Pitlochry Festival Theatre until 01 August 2026. For further details, go to the company’s website.
Photo by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan
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