| King Lear | So What? Productions |
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KING LEAR
Not for the Shakespearean purist - So What? Productions rips the heart out of King Lear , Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy but also his most human, sticks it on a spike and shoves it in your face at Sydney’s Seymour Centre.
Embracing the issues of common humanity, death and decay, the seventy-year-old King Lear is played by a nineteen-year-old student from the University of Sydney.
This NSW-based company of young theatre artists (all aged 19 – 23) has radically altered the final act of the play, focusing its attention to its characters final moments and using excerpts from found texts to fill in the gaps. This charged interpretation of King Lear argues forcefully that we must all connect with each other; once empathy fails us, we don’t recognise humanity and all is lost.
Anarchy and madness descend upon a family when old King Lear tests the love and loyalty of his three daughters. Banishing his youngest for her honesty, Lear is subjected to betrayal and exile by his other daughters and watches his kingdom dissolve in disarray. Driven mad the King wanders in the stormy wilderness while his friends disguised attempt to restore order in a corrupted world turned upside down.
Says Director Christopher Hay, “King Lear unfolds in a world not so very different to yours, one where the former King has to stand by and watch other people stuff up in increasingly human ways. His tragedy is our tragedy: he gets things wrong, badly wrong. The challenge is to realise before it’s too late.”
King Lear is So What? Productions’ kick-off to 2010 and will head off following Sydney to the Adelaide Fringe Festival 2010, Australia’s largest arts festival.
Venue: Downstairs Theatre, Seymour Centre, Cnr City Rd & Cleveland St
Chippendale NSW 2006
Dates: 3 – 12 February 2010
Tickets: $20 Adult; $15 Concession
02 9351 7940 | www.seymourcentre.com |
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