Given the exhaustive dissections of Shakespeare's King Lear over the centuries, the best a modern deconstruction can do is bring the themes of this tragedy into a fresh, contemporary focus. That is precisely what Isabelle Kralj and Mark Anderson did this past weekend with Theatre Gigante’s The Lears.
The one-weekend show featured John Kishline as a remarkably sympathetic King Lear. Kishline, isolated onstage for much of the production, was accompanied by jazz musicians, three women playing his daughters, two men playing witnesses and a sack of potatoes.
The somewhat sterile feel of the production was bridged by the music and Iain Court’s massive video projection in the background. At the center of The Lears were compassionate concerns about the way society treats its older citizens.
Theatre Gigante's next production is Isadora and Nijinsky, which runs May 5-8.
