THEATRE
It has been 20 years since John Bell established the only Australian touring Shakespearean company. Performing King Lear in Brisbane is one part of his Australian theatre tour to celebrate this extraordinary anniversary.
Short lived as it is, it is a unique opportunity to not only see the classical play but to see John Bell the legend himself striding the stage in all his glory and in all his passion. The legend of Bell Shakespeare began in 1990, when as John Bell puts it “we had nothing ..but a borrowed circus tent and a glorious mission, a mission to make Shakespeare and live theatre engaging and accessible for as many people in Australia as possible”.
Here is the living proof that passion maketh the man, and indeed maketh the successful theatre company. For those of you who are not familiar with the play, King Lear (John Bell) is an all-powerful king who decides to retire from kingship and hand his throne to his daughters, Goneril (Jane Montgomery Griffiths), Regan ( Leah Purcell) and Cordelia (Susan Prior) to rule in his stead.
Cordelia is exiled into the arms of the King of France when she decides not to play his game of who loves Lear the best.
The Earl of Kent (Peter Kowitz) objects and is exiled too. In the meantime, another tragic family disagreement forces the Earl of Gloucester (Bruce Myles) to become exiled albeit without his eyes whilst his bastard son, Edmund (Tom Walter) plots the takeover of all the kingdom by playing the sisters off against each other in their passion for his love.
Alas the renunciation of power by King Lear meant that he exposed himself to misery from the hands of his beloved daughters when that self-same power took over their senses. He is stripped of his army, his rights and his pride and sent out into a storm with the doors barred against his return. Now stay with me as the plot thickens. On the storm ridden moors, the King and the Earl and the King’s faithful Fool (Peter Carroll) and Poor Tom (who is the true son of Gloucester, Edgar, (Josh McConville) struggle through the cold and the rain to find shelter and sanity. Cordelia returns from France to find her poor mad father only for her to be captured by Edmund who orders her to be hung. During this crises, both daughters kill each other, Edmund is killed and finally King Lear dies of overwhelming grief.
Thus in the end the stage is satisfactorily littered with corpses. The real trick in the play is to work out what happened to the Fool.
Bell’s King Lear was a most enjoyable experience. This extraordinary company produced a polished expert ensemble with John Bell providing that intensity to his role that is pivotal to the play.
This force was counterpointed by a very clever and charismatic actor in Josh McConville who positively stole the show in his scenes with his youthful energy and stage presence. Congratulations to the obviously talented director Marion Potts who has the boldness and the vision to blend the timeless Bard with an innovative direction that is playful and reaps the profit all the more by having that inimitable raw Australian flavour.
This must have been the way that Shakespeare originally intended it to be played.
Oscar
