"King Lear". Keble O'Reilly. Review by Anuj Mishra

King Lear is an odd choice of production for a student company. This is for a very simple reason: the play’s titular character is meant to be old to the point of senility, necessitating a performance that believably conveys mad rage, harmless confusion, and tender affection, sometimes all in the same scene. It follows that Lear is a hallowed role, reserved for the greatest actors who are still up for a challenge. How could a student ever hope to pull off such a feat?

Director Alex Bridges’ attempt, the first in Oxford for over ten years (as the marketing professes), rises to the behemoth of Lear with some flair. The beating heart of the play is Scott Burke as Lear himself. Decked out with cosmetic wrinkles and baring suitably laboured expressions, Burke made for a believable, and therefore sympathetic Lear. As we watch the once powerful king succumb to his daughters and his own emotional instability, Burke mastered the sudden crescendos of madness and nailed Lear’s blossoming into wisdom in the final act.

The play’s visual interest was confined to a singular prop piece: a throne woven out of branches. This obvious motif of authority – or lack thereof – was used effectively: Lear sulks in the throne during the first act, though it lies empty for the rest of the play as Britain is plunged into division and civil war. The only other character to momentarily appropriate this seat is the conniving Edmund (George Loynes), who relishes it for a moment once he has successfully done away with his overly noble brother Edgar (George Eustace), and his cumbersome father Gloucester (Rowan Brown). Loynes thrived as Edmund, his eyes betraying the slightest glint of depravity as he laid out conspiracies in asides, while the click of fortune’s wheel was almost audible as he met his end.

As Lear’s dissembling daughters, Antonia Anstatt and Georgina Cotes gave strong performances, while Nicole Reid as the loyal Cordelia exuded the aura of tragedy that the character demands. As the fool, who paradoxically distracts Lear from his own foolishness with pearls of wisdom, Hafeja Khanam gave a delightful and well-choreographed performance. Individually, each cast member sounded at ease with Shakespeare’s verse, and the plot was, by result, remarkably easy to parse.

While some choices – for instance, the sporadic use of background music – could have been embraced more fully, the opportunities that the O’Reilly’s tiered structure offers were well-utilised. King Lear is a big play, and this was a strong, if lengthy, treatment of Shakespeare’s meditation on fortune and eld.

King Lear continues its run at the Keble O’Reilly until 8th March. Runtime: 3 hours, including a 15 minute interval.

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