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While the production pares Lear down to a ninety-minute, one-act running time out of necessity, you may question some of Newton’s cuts and changes. Absent are the interactions between the mad Lear and the disguised, runaway Edgar, and you might miss Lear’s observations about “unaccommodated man... [as] such a poor, bare forked animal as thou art.” These scenes may not be essential to the plot, but they’re thematically important – they mark Lear’s realization that without her royal trappings, she’s nothing more than a common human being after all. More baffling, though, is when Newton makes specific changes to Shakespeare’s text for no apparent reason. “I love your majesty / According to my blood,” says Cordelia in the first scene, instead of “according to my bond”. Later, the blinded Gloucester laments, “As flies to wanton boys are we to our god; he kills us for his sport.” Not that I’m a fanatical Shakespeare purist or anything, but I don’t see why such a famous line needed to be changed, so conspicuously. (The blinding scene, by the way, uses a gruesome gouging sound effect that actually made a few audience members gasp on opening night.) Regardless of nitpicking on changes, it’s D’Aquila’s performance that runs things here. Her Lear doesn’t quite have the clueless senility of David Fox’s unique interpretation in 2015, but she brings out some colourful sides of the old queen. Right from the start, you don’t want to get on this lady’s bad side – witness her threatening delivery of “The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft” to Kent, or how her brutal, violent rebuke of Goneril reduces the latter to tears. But another scene, in which she first meets the disguised Kent while tipsy with wine from an offstage party, suggests she knows how to have a good time too (albeit with a strong undercurrent of privilege), while her later madness bring out Lear’s playful, childlike quality – and her anguished, grief-stricken howls in her last scene are heartbreaking. Dahl offers a decidedly original take on Edmund, playing the Bard’s bastard as a flamboyant, effeminate young man whose catty line delivery often has a flirtatious undertone, and costume designer Carolyn M. Smith beefs up his rebellious quality with a bare-chested look early on and a leather jacket later. (He sounds almost as if he wants to take the gods home with him when he says, “Now, gods, stand up for bastards!”) Otherwise, Wright makes a strong, confident Goneril, and Cadieux and Man are fine as Gloucester and Edgar respectively. As Regan, Philips often comes off more as a saucy teenager than as the privileged daughter of a queen; a recent York University theatre grad, Philips is making her Canadian Stage debut this year, so I suppose we could chalk it up to inexperience. Sadly, CanStage staple Robert Persichini is missing the opening week due to health issues, so Newton has stepped in his place temporarily (on book) as Lear’s Fool. As far as a condensed Lear goes, this is a good night of outdoor theatre. It’s also a sign of the times: as women continue to struggle for equality – in life and in the arts – this production demonstrates that female portrayals of some of the greatest stage roles of all time are long overdue. King Lear runs at Toronto’s High Park Amphitheatre until September 2.Brilliant move to make Lear a woman. Added such resonance to the Lear/daughters dynamic and the actress is incredibly talented. #SiHP
— Jaclyn Qua-Hiansen (@JaclynMQH) July 9, 2017