King Lear & His Three Daughters: Belvoir’s Shakespeare Adaptation Gets Back To Basics

‘King Lear & His Three Daughters: Belvoir’s Shakespeare Adaptation Gets Back To Basics’ is a review of by Irina Dunn.

The dangerously foolish old King Lear (played by the magnificent Colin Friels) wants to divide his kingdom among his three daughters according to the love they profess for him. Taken in by the unctuous flatterings of his two oldest, Goneril (Charlotte Friels) and Regan (Jana Zvedeniuk), he banishes his loyal and loving daughter Cordelia (Ahunim Abebe) without her share when she says, “I love your majesty according to my bond; no more nor less”.

Put aside the risks lurking in such a proposed division, even among the favoured two daughters, he is faced with their mocking rejection of his retinue, and is in turn thrown out.

Meanwhile, he has banished his faithful retained Kent, and Gloucester (this time played as a Countess by Alison Whyte) is left to roam the wilds, with Peter Carroll making a welcome return to the stage as the Fool — and a delightful old fool he is too!

Edmund, the illegitimate son of Gloucester, portrays himself as the devoted son, casting his legitimate brother Edgar as the infidel, and playing the two sisters off against one another.

The stage is almost completely bare, Colin Friels’ chalk circle in the middle of the stage and a line of nine chairs at the back wall representing the deaths to come.

In The True History Of The Life And Death Of King Lear & His Three Daughters, actors look as if they have walked in with their street clothes. There’s no purple finery here, although there is a lot of blood, on clothing, gushing out of wounds, and bloody tears from Gloucester’s blinded eyes.

All this places ever more emphasis on Shakespeare’s words – and the delivery of the actors who speak them. There were times when the delivery was so fast it was difficult to catch the words, and so some of the subtleties of the surrounding action was missed.

Colin Friels, however, gave the performance of a lifetime, howling out the lament, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”

Well worth catching over the summer break!

The True History Of The Life And Death Of King Lear & His Three Daughters is on at Belvoir St Theatre until 4 January. Find out more here.