THE RAW POWER OF EMOTION
The Times, Thursday July 12 1990
By Benedict Nightingale

The National and Renessaince theatres will do well if they produce anything
as fresh as this, the first of the summer's unwonted Lears. Nicholas Hytner's
production combines intelligence and power of feelings; and at its heart is a
performance which demonstrates that John Wood, not withstanding his surename,
is a magnificent conductor of electricity.

First the odd quibble. I have no quarrel with the mix of golden dressing
gowns, Victorian greatcoats, modern jackets and medieval armour, or with a
retinue of knights that looks like a wandering rabble in revolutionary 
Russia. This serves the function of evoking all human eras, not one in 
particular. I had more trouble with the set, a vast turning crate whose 
bottom opens to reveal a stoney pothole for Poor Tom, and whose inner walls 
are a stange shade of turquoise. That may make a suitable space for Goneril's
drawing room; less so for the heat, even with a diamond encrusted sky, 
revolving behind it.

This is too abstract for a production, one of whose strength is its 
turbulence. In no previous Lear have I been so aware of unruly feelings 
gusting this way and that, then suddenly transforming themselves into gales, 
or tempests. The production is about confused people destroyed by their 
incomprehensible emotions or, as with Wood's massively erratic Lear, 
struggling through to new ones.

What a father he must have been. The effects of long abuse are evident in 
his daughters. Alex Kingston's Cordelia has become rebellious, bloody-minded 
and rejects Lear almost more tham he does her. Estelle Kohler's Goneril and 
Sally Dexter's Regan, seem still to want the love of this old, impossible 
man. When they make reasonable requests perfectly nicely, he flies into 
another absurd fury. It is fashionable nowadays to allow us to see the 
"bad" daughters' point of view, but rarely as strongly as here. Both of 
them seem badly in need of Valium, psychoanalysis, or both. They are 
frustrated, exhausted, at the end of a tether which finally breaks, 
liberating all that suppressed anger and barely contained madness. Their 
evils proliferate, but they, like Goneril and Regan themselves, are 
ultimately Lear's fault.

That is apparent at his first entrance. He limps on, sour and growling, 
trumpets out whimsical commands, sits in a brooding silence, then suddenly 
turns tender and genial. Wood is a mercurial actor capable of great variety; 
but he has sometimes managed his transitions imperfectly. His Lear is 
changeable and unpredictable; frighteningly so, but also wonderfully so, 
since the character must have a potential for rich feeling.

The effect can be subtle. A switch of mood can occur in one sentence. The 
line rejecting Cordelia, "would thou not have been born, not to have pleased 
me better," begins in rage and ends in defeat, as if Lear already sees his 
error. The effect can be more than subtle. Wood is capable of tears and 
thunder, ironic glee and strange intensity, as he listenes to the 
philosopher, Poor Tom. The ending, as always is horribly painful but hardly 
more so than his great wail of "reason not the need," as his daughters try 
to replace his knights with a bathchair and attendant nurses. In that cry is 
all the protest of one generation ceding power to another.

Norman Rodway's Gloucester, David Troughton's Kent and Linus Roache's Edgar, 
a bookworm who discovers hidden parts of himself by adopting the role of a 
madman, have their parts to play in the emotional turmoil. The fool is a 
woman, Linde Kerr Scott; but she belies gender by playing the part as a 
shiny, sharpnosed, androgynous puppet who squeaks and clatters through her 
lines, and is literally hung by her back on a hook when she gets tiresome.

That is not one of Hytner's better inventions, since intimate rapport between 
Wood and this creature is missing. But never mind. Last night this Lear 
lasted four hours; and rarely has so long a time in the theatre passed so 
speedily.

(Thanks to Rosaleen, who sent this to me! Mari)