It is always fascinating to see how performances mature on the road from Stratford to London. Last summer, Corin Redgrave was already a fine Lear, but he seemed to be judging the character from without as much as occupying him from within. Now, there is a palpable sense of his identification with the role rather than a critical commentary on it.
Redgrave still starts out as a prankish military despot accustomed to the protective carapace of power - Colonel Lear more than King Lear. Even the division of the kingdom is a kind of practical joke: first, Redgrave totters on, faking senility, and then splits up Britain so partially that Goneril and Regan are left with the wilder extremities. Finding his will thwarted by Cordelia, Redgrave then defaces the map with sulky, childish petulance.
However, having established Lear's brutal whimsicality, Redgrave now seems less afraid of those piercing moments of remorse. He maintains a facade of whip-cracking authority with his inhospitable daughters while conveying Lear's inner doubt. The line "Nothing can be made out of nothing," said to the Fool, is accompanied by a quiet, guilt-haunted stare. What we see, as with so many of Shakespeare's heroes, is a man who gradually awakens to the counterfeit hollowness of rule. By the end, as Redgrave crawls on all fours before Cordelia or feverishly pumps her dead heart, Lear has acquired a helpless, stricken humanity.
Over the months, Redgrave has learned the value of simplicity: of becoming the medium, at key moments, for the emotion within the text. While I admire Redgrave's performance, Bill Alexander's production strikes me as no more than a serviceable framework. The mix of Edwardian and modern costumes means that the play is rooted in no particular world, and there is too heavy a reliance on Jonathan Goldstein's nerve-jangling score and David Tinson's ear-shattering sound, particularly in the storm scenes, to whip up excitement.
Yet there are some strong supporting performances. One misses John Normington's old Fool, but his replacement, Leo Wringer, has the right subversive impertinence. Louis Hilyer is a quite outstanding Kent, full of an angry solicitude that leads him to shove Edgar rudely aside as he grasps the dying Lear to his bosom. And Matthew Rhys's coldly sardonic Edmund and Ruth Gemmell's calculatingly sexy Regan give the impression of characters born with every human organ except hearts. The evening, however, finally belongs to Redgrave, who is now inhabiting Lear rather than simply performing him.
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