Toronto Star, September 07, 2006
This Lear climbs but never soars
By: Richard Ouzounian
If every production of King Lear is a mountain that must be scaled, then the cast of the current Soulpepper Theatre version are to be commended for their energy and commitment, but those qualities aren't enough to bring them to the summit.
As this great dramatic poem builds to its devastating finish, you sadly start to realize that � despite many virtues � Joseph Ziegler's staging lacks the power and focus to find the triumph inside this tragedy.
Shakespeare's story of an aging monarch who divides his kingdom among his three daughters, loses his mind and finally comes to a greater sanity places almost impossible demands on a theatre company. Besides the awesome challenge of the title role, there are a dozen other parts that must be played with strength and depth. And the director and designers must deliver a world that combines universal grandeur with some sense of specific reality.
The problems here begin with the stage itself. This is the first time Soulpepper has used a thrust stage in its new home and the fit isn't a comfortable one.
It's obviously an attempt to duplicate the famous Stratford design, but there have been several miscalculations. Less than a quarter of the audience actually wraps around the sides, and the corners of the stage aren't placed on neat, clean aisles as they are at Stratford.
Consequently many scenes are blocked from the view of numerous audience members, who wind up staring at actors' backs for far too long. And something in the acoustic configuration has also gone wrong, since a good portion of the text is rendered inaudible or incomprehensible.
The costumes by Christina Poddubiuk are also a perplexing blend of old and new, with leather maxi-coats and jeans sharing the stage with medieval armour and tunics.
There are actors who rise above these problems. Jonathan Goad delivers the performance of the evening as the calculating Edmund. Goad knows how to speak in a whisper and yet be heard; he also manages to convey subtleties of meaning with a single glance. When he's on stage, you really don't concentrate on anyone else.
Stuart Hughes also does well as the noble Kent, playing him with a vigour and stamina that keep driving the play forward, while Brenda Robins' sensuous Regan and Nancy Palk's demonic Goneril are a fine pair of evil sisters.
But many of the others seem to mistake sincerity for blandness. There's finally little to remember about Diego Matamoros' Fool, David Storch's Edgar, Les Carlson's Gloucester or Patricia Fagan's Cordelia.
The major burden of the enterprise, of course, rests on the actor playing Lear. William Webster has many of the right weapons in his acting arsenal to portray the ruler and he deploys them with skill. His tenderness can be exquisite, his pathos is heartbreaking, his philosophizing profound.
But what everyone ultimately expects from Lear is the ability to rage with madness and this isn't Webster's long suit. He winds up sounding petulant rather than volcanic and far too often his speech edges up into a screechingly high register. Every time his voice breaks, our hearts don't.
He plays some aspects of Lear superbly, but huge other chunks of the character escape him and Ziegler's increasingly loose staging doesn't help matters. Instead of building to a tragic conclusion, this production dwindles to a melancholy end.
Yes there is good work being done, but King Lear is the kind of play that demands nothing less than greatness and that is in short supply here.