King Lear the Shakespeare Play King Lear

King Lear

The Shakespeare play King Lear has been adapted for modern audiences and staged at the University of Miami's Jerry Herman Ring Theatre. Lee Soroko was the director, and made the decision to apply a modern context to the Shakespeare play. The result was surprisingly seamless. Veteran stage actor Dennis Krausnick plays King Lear, who in this case appears more like a military general than one might imagine when reading the original Shakespeare text. One tends to encounter all Shakespeare texts by imagining all set in Elizabethan times, so it is refreshing to see the face of Lear literally transformed. Krausnick's mature performance is remarkable. His facial expressions are as stoic as Patrick Stewart's are, and his needs only to shift his visage now and again to convey the various thoughts and emotions that pass through the King's tragic mind. His three daughters are played by Rachel Derby (who plays Goneril), Maggie Weston (who plays (Regan) and Annette Hammond (who plays Cordelia).

There is a pro-female overtone of King Lear that many modern audiences will appreciate. The elderly Lear is ready to retire and facing his final years on earth. As he contemplates his mortality, he also meditates on how his legacy will remain in terms of how to bequeath his estate. He only has daughters, and so he must choose among them. Goneril and Regan recognize the opportunity to seize power. Gripped by their greed, Goneril and Regan both put on lavish performances, gushing about how much they love their father. Their costumes are streamlined and simple, which is easy on the eyes and offers a lithe profile. The audience can already see from this early scene in the play that the Soroko production will be a success. Goneril and Regan offer convincing renditions of the only slightly adapted original text, and can be outshone only by Lear's booming voice and deep jovial laughter at his daughter's flattery. The scene later on when Goleril and Regan are discussing their true feelings about their father allows the two actors to shine on their own. Their demeanor has also changed, as they reveal their true colors. The lighting during this scene is correspondingly dark: to symbolize the secrets they hide and the nature of their conniving behavior. Goneril especially shifts over the course of the play, as she becomes even more morally depraved. She reveals so many different sides of herself that she barely needs to change her costumes.

When the third daughter Cornelia expresses her honest feelings, which are that love should not be given such a trite meaning as who gets inheritance, Lear's demeanor shifts entirely. From the audience's perspective, it is wonderful to watch Krausnick's face change in response to his third daughter's blunt assessment of the state of affairs. She is the only one who is honest and just; the audience immediately sympathizes with her. Lear, of course, does not. Rather than approve of his daughter's honesty and obvious penchant for good leadership, he does the worst possible thing: he divides his kingdom in two. Lear's decision is tragic. The play becomes complex, as a multitude of world leaders are impacted directly by Lear's decision as well as the marriage alliances that have ensued.