Game playing: Pepter Lunkuse (Cordelia) and Don Warrington (King Lear). Picture credit: Jonathan Keenan
Theatre: Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester
Play: King Lear
Playwright: William Shakespeare
Director: Michael Buffong
Review by Carl Palmer
Such was the excited anticipation surrounding Don Warrington’s version of King Lear, the erstwhile ruler deranged by family treachery, that I feared for the man taking on his professed Mount Everest of classical roles. Yet when Warrington steps onto the stage, clad in impressive period costume, he looks as if he is born to play Shakespeare’s ill-fated king.
Warrington’s King Lear doesn’t just look the part in a dignified opening scene; his commanding stage presence is not that of a man on the way to mental collapse. Not at first, anyway. Any expectation of seeing something dramatic only heightens the moment Lear decides to give up his power and divide his realm among his three daughters – Cordelia, Regan and Goneril.
The plan is to give the largest piece of his kingdom to the child who professes to love him the most. Corrupt and deceitful Goneril (Rakie Ayola) and Regan (Debbie Korley) lie to their father to gain an advantage over Cordelia (Pepter Lunkuse), his favourite daughter. Warrington’s Lear is outraged when Cordelia refuses to take part in his games or stoop to false flattery like her sisters, just to please him.
The king’s fury is not easily abated, but each time he explodes in anger, he appears more vulnerable, weaker and exposed. Warrington conveys all of these emotions so well that his subsequent madness is shown in his nuanced movements of a man crumbling from the inside out, and when he says to Goneril: “Life and death. I am ashamed that thou hast power to shake my manhood thus,” it’s hard not to have sympathy with him.
Internal crisis: Don Warrington (King Lear). Picture credit: Jonathan Keenan
This impressive Talawa Theatre Company co-production in association with Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, has other stand out moments. A minimalist, earthy set is enlivened spectacularly with an apocalyptic downpour, drenching everyone, including Lear. The drama is enhanced further by Johanna Town’s lighting and Tayo Akinbode’s darkly portentous sound and music.
At a little over three hours, Buffong does incredibly well to sustain momentum and tell the story of a monarch breaking down. Besides great performances from all three sisters, Wil Jonson’s honourable Earl of Kent, Lear’s faithful champion, conveys his implicit authority well and detaches himself from the pretence that others heap on Lear.
Special mention must go to Miltos Yerolemou as The Fool, whose extraordinary despair in the storm scene matches the brilliant comic timing he manages to display throughout.
The play’s pervasive quality of evil, violence and cruelty are not compromised; and no better is this displayed than in a horrific torture scene with Earl of Gloucester, leading to gasps inside Manchester’s theatre in the round.
There are good supporting performances which stay consistent throughout. Mark Springer, as the wronged but just Albany, builds his character very well as the as the play reaches its conclusion.
Alfred Enoch as Edgar (a familiar face to Harry Potter and How to Get Away with Murder fans), is excellent in his portrayal of his maddened alter-ego Poor Tom, so physically overwrought his apparent reluctance to return to any sort of reality is compelling. By contrast, Thomas Coombes as man servant Oswald, is flamboyantly-comical at the right times.
This is not only a good King Lear to go and see, it’s also a crowning moment for Warrington’s stage career.
King Lear is at the Royal Exchange until 7 May 2016.