King Lear to premiere at IU

Actor Henry Woronicz, the king, spoke from a throne imprinted with the inscription “Ex Nihilo,” or “out of nothing,” as the attention of the onstage cast moved to him.  

In the first minutes of the IU theater department’s Monday night dress rehearsal of Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” nothing was everywhere.

“Nothing will come of nothing,” the king says in the first act, in a scene that prompts his future tragedy.

The concept of nothing is one of the central themes in the theater department’s production of “King Lear, ” which premieres at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Ruth N. Halls Theatre.

The word inspired director Fontaine Syer’s adaptation of the play.

“It’s a really important theme for Fontaine,” said senior Sasha Belle Neufeld, who is majoring in theater and drama and plays Cordelia in the production. “You have to look at life in this existentialist manner — life is here, and then it’s gone. It’s nothing.”

Neufeld’s character, one of the king’s three daughters, makes an appearance in the text only when she is banished in the first act and killed in the fourth.

“I get to relax in the middle,” Neufeld said. “But it is really difficult. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do backstage to keep me focused and to keep me in the show.”

“King Lear” was written during the time of Shakespeare’s quartet of tragedies, which includes “Hamlet,” “Othello” and “Macbeth.” It tells the story of an aging despot who splits his kingdom among his daughters, provided they declare how much they love him first.

Cordelia, Lear’s most beloved daughter, answers his question with the word “nothing.”
“Actions speak louder than words,” Neufeld said. “That’s how Cordelia represents nothing in this play. She believes the love that she showed him should be enough for him to understand.”

The furious king deposes his daughter and sets in motion the tragic events leading up to his overthrow, insanity and death.

Nevertheless, Neufeld views the king as more pitiable than detestable.

“Lear is senile,” she said. “When Lear chooses to banish her ... it’s not him. It’s this illness that’s taken over him. But I think Cordelia fights that because she wants to hope that he’ll come back to her, that he’ll overcome this terrible thing.”

The idea of redemption also figures heavily into Shakespeare’s play.

“We can find no other word than renewal,” wrote the Shakespearean scholar Lionel Knights.

Even so, early critics of “King Lear” thought the writer was too harsh with the tragic death of Lear and Cordelia, agreeing with the late historical Shakespeare critic Samuel Johnson, who remarked he was so shocked by Cordelia’s death he avoided rereading the play for years.

Complaints such as these resulted in a radically altered version of the play by Nahum Tate that kept Lear and Cordelia alive.

This adaptation was performed for nearly two centuries.

However, Syer’s production would suggest nothing of this optimistic rendition.
The play features costumes in the drab, gothic colors of a party of mourners and a massive set piece that looks like different sheets of driftwood.

A member of the design team described it as epic and crumbling.

“But to the characters, that’s just their world,” cast member and IU doctoral student Eric Heaps said. “There is this falling apart. It’s coming apart. Nothing is coming from nothing.”

Heaps plays the Earl of Gloucester, who banishes his loyal son Edgar in an act of rage, trusting to the support of characters who later overthrow Gloucester and gouge out his eyes.

“It’s apparent that I go from a lot to nothing,” Heaps said. “The set design itself becomes nothing as it goes along. Pieces keep flying out.”

The downward spiral of events that the men endure, such as Lear’s madness and Gloucester’s eye gouging, have been taken to graphic extremes in other
productions.

In 2007, “Lord of the Rings” actor Ian McKellen stripped nude during an 18 month-long production of the play to better illustrate Lear’s madness.

Heaps, recounting Syer’s many experiences of seeing “Lear” performed, said a realistic and extreme eye-gouging scene would not convey the effect she wanted for her own production.

“She thought of this idea of focusing on the emotional experience,” Heaps said. “You’re getting the emotion because you know what’s happening.”

Emotional effect is something the cast said they  take very personally.

“Lear breaks my heart every time I see him,” Heaps said. “I want the audience to experience his journey — to be dragged through the mud with him. I just hope they feel something.”

The last words of the play are Edgar’s, and they are used to illustrate the passing of age as well as the attempt to reconcile the future by enduring hardship.

“You have to bear these woes in order to come back up,” Heaps said.

“We that are young shall never see so much nor live so old,” Edgar’s lines finish the play.

In one of the upper left-hand theater seats, Syer looked down with approval.

The theme of the play had revolved around nothing and negativity, but her tone of voice was approving.

“I think we’re in great shape,” she said.