Toronto Sun, September 08, 2006
Uneven casting topples the King
By: John Coulbourn
To paraphrase a one-time Clinton adviser: It's about the story, stupid.
Whether it's Thornton Wilder's Our Town, G. Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara or Ruth and Augustus Goetz's adaptation of Henry James' Washington Square, audiences know that in any production directed by Joseph Ziegler, narrative will be the star.
Not surprisingly, Ziegler's take on King Lear, which opened under the Soulpepper flag in the Young Centre earlier this week, does Shakespeare proud.
This is a Lear unmuddied by directorial flourishes that too often serve to separate an audience from a good yarn, driven instead by the emotional power of a timeless story simply and powerfully told.
As a result, it is a production far greater than the sum of all its parts, marred as it is by uneven casting, a less-than-regal leading man and a company struggling to accommodate the unique demands of a hugely versatile new space.
Off the top, this is a production of casting hits and misses.
There's less-than-stellar work in the performances of Derek Boyes (as Albany), C. David Johnson (as his brother-in-law Cornwall), Diego Matamoros (as an oddly dispirited Fool), Patricia Fagan (as Cordelia) and David Storch (defeated by the strange demands of Edgar, despite game effort).
But weighed against strong work from Jonathan Goad (truly chilling as the bastard Edgar), Stuart Hughes (as the loyal Kent) and Nancy Palk and Brenda Robins (as avaricious sisters Goneril and Regan), Ziegler succeeds in maintaining a delicate balance.
That conspires to focus even more attention on William Webster in the title role -- a performance marked by impressive craftsmanship and deep commitment. These qualities may be enough to transform Webster into a serviceable Lear, but fall short of earning him his crown as King Lear.
In the end, Webster's aging monarch simply lacks the dignitas to transform his descent into madness into a classic tragedy. Instead of a king dividing his kingdom, he emerges as little more than a successful retailer, dividing up a chain -- and truth to tell, Les Carlson's otherwise lacklustre Gloucester has more majesty in the end than Webster's Lear.
Then there is the theatre itself, reconfigured for this production to emulate the Stratford Festival's renowned thrust stage, but possessed nonetheless of unique demands that require further resolution in the areas of blocked sightlines and other minor annoyances that now far outweigh niggling concerns over some of Christina Poddubiuk's costuming.
It all comes together finally as a competent Lear, but certainly not a King Lear for the ages.