Jonathan Miller’s reputation as a director is that of an eccentric conceptualist. But in fact, his productions are chiefly marked by their verbal lucidity and visual sobriety: something certainly true of his latest King Lear, conceived as a touring Northern Broadsides production, and providing as clear and unshowy a version of the play as you could wish to see.
Miller sets the action at the time when the play was written, in the early 17th century: an astute move since it was a period of moral questioning about both paternal and kingly authority. But what is striking is Miller’s avoidance of anything over-demonstrative in the staging. Lear’s division of his kingdom is an intimate, family affair rather than a gaudy public spectacle. There is no hint of his riotous train of travelling knights, and Gloucester’s blinding takes place out of view of the audience, in one of the semi-lit tunnels of this subterranean theatre. That last is a great relief, sparing us both the extreme cruelty and desperate contrivance that normally accompanies the moment.
Barrie Rutter’s fine Lear fits perfectly into Miller’s conception of a play in which domestic conflict acts as a metaphor for a larger national crisis. Rutter’s Lear is less a figure of awesome grandeur than a testy father craving displays of affection. The key quality of the performance is its recognisable humanity: this is a Lear who beats his head against a theatre pillar in acknowledgement of his folly; who gets a huge laugh by following his curse of Goneril with “I’ll not chide thee”; and who, as the play progresses, combines an angry narcissism with a moving self-awareness. Although he has a resonant voice, Rutter spares us the big bow-wow effects, to create a Lear who seems authentic, truthful and the ultimate image of the errant father.
As in his previous productions, Miller also proves there’s no Fool like an old Fool: here he is played by Fine Time Fontayne as a tart-tongued figure who mercifully never capers but who acts as Lear’s conscience. There is strong support from Helen Sheals as a Goneril seething with stored-up resentment, John Branwell as a touchingly credulous Gloucester, and Sean Cernow as an unsually meditative Edmund.
I’ve seen productions that laid more stress on the play’s senseless contradictions. But this is a Lear of notable swiftness and clarity that, as the lady next to me said, leaves you wrung through.
• Until 7 March. Box office: 01422 255 266. Venue: Viaduct theatre, Halifax. Then touring.
