sign in sign up
<<
Home , Alec Newman, Christopher Oram, Don Juan in Soho, Gina McKee, Gwilym Lee, Ron Cook

2011 Spring Season APR 2011

Alexandre Arrechea, The Wind on My Face, 2010

Published by: BAM 2011 Spring Season sponsor: BAM 2011 Spring Season

Brooklyn Academy of Music

Alan H. Fishman, Chairman of the Board Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury, William I. Campbell, Vice Chairman of the Board Chairman of the Board Adam E. Max, Vice Chairman of the Board , Artistic Director Karen Brooks Hopkins, President Nick Giles, Executive Producer Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer

present

The Donmar Warehouse production of By

Approximate BAM Harvey Theater running time: Apr 28—30; May 3—7, 11—14, 17—21, 24—28, 31; three hours, Jun 1—4 at 7:30pm including one Apr 30 at 2pm; May 1, 8, 15, 22, 29; Jun 5 at 3pm intermission Director Michael Grandage Set and costume designer Lighting designer Neil Austin Composer and sound designer Adam Cork Casting Anne McNulty CDG

BAM 2011 Theater sponsor: BAM 2011 Spring Season sponsor:

Leadership support for King Lear provided by Frederick Iseman and Donald R. Mullen Jr. Additional support provided by Alan Jones & Ashley Garrett and The Laura Pels Foundation.

Major support for theater at BAM provided by Rose M. Badgeley Residuary Charitable Trust, Corinthian Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, The Francena T. Harrison Foundation Trust, Frederick Loewe Foundation, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc., The SHS Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Inc, and Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. King Lear

CAST (in order of speaking) Earl of Kent Michael Hadley Earl of Gloucester Paul Jesson Edmund Alec Newman King Lear Goneril Gina McKee Regan Justine Mitchell Cordelia Pippa Bennett-Warner Duke of Albany Tom Beard Duke of Cornwall Gideon Turner Duke of Burgundy Stefano Braschi King of France Ashley Zhangazha Edgar Gwilym Lee Oswald Amit Shah The Fool Ron Cook Gentleman Harry Attwell Old Servant Derek Hutchinson

PRODUCTION Associate Director Titas Halder Associate Designer Richard Kent Associate Lighting Designer Richard Howell Associate Sound Designer Sebastian Frost

Production Manager Patrick Molony American Stage Manager Arthur Gaffin Deputy Stage Manager Mary O’Hanlon Assistant Stage Manager Rhiannon Harper Costume Supervisor Stephanie Arditti Fight Director Terry King Rehearsal Photography Marc Brenner Production Photography Johan Persson Text Consultant Russell Jackson Wardrobe Mistress Morag Pirrie Set Constructed by Bowerwood Productions Set Painted by Richard Nutbourne Make Up Provided by M•A•C Costumes Made by Lynn Clark, Sue Coates, Judith Darracott, Sasha Keir, Hilary Marshner, Liz Poole Millinery by Jane Smith Design Assistant David Woodhead

The actors are appearing with the permission of Actors’ Equity Association. The American stage manager is a member of Actors’ Equity Association. King Lear Photo: Derek Jacobi, by Johan Persson

THE PLAY King Lear decides to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. When, unlike her sisters, Cordelia refuses to make a public declaration of love for her father, she is disinherited and, without a dowry, is married by the King of France. The Earl of Kent defends her and is banished by Lear. The two elder daughters, Goneril and Regan, and their husbands inherit the kingdom.

Gloucester, deceived by his bastard son, Edmund, disinherits his legitimate son, Edgar, who is forced to go into hiding to save his life.

Lear, now stripped of his power, quarrels with both Goneril and Regan about the conditions on which he is to stay in their households. In a rage he goes out into the stormy night, accompanied by his Fool and by Kent, now disguised as a servant. They encounter Edgar, disguised as a mad beggar. Gloucester goes to help Lear but is betrayed by Edmund and captured by Regan and Cornwall who, as a punishment, put out his eyes.

Lear is taken secretly to Dover, where Cordelia has landed with a French army. The blind Gloucester meets, but does not recognize, Edgar, who leads him to Dover. Lear and Cordelia are reconciled but in the ensuing battle are captured by the sisters’ forces.

Goneril and Regan are in love with Edmund, who encourages them both. Discovering this, Goneril’s husband Albany forces Edmund to defend himself against the charge of treachery. A mysterious figure appears to challenge Edmund and, after fatally wounding him, reveals himself to be Edgar. News comes that Goneril has poisoned Regan and then committed suicide. Before dying, Edmund reveals that he has ordered the deaths of Lear and Cordelia. He attempts to repeal the order but it is too late.

Shakespeare (1564—1616) wrote King Lear in 1606, the year of its first stage production, and during the period when he wrote , Macbeth, and Measure for Measure. Who’s Who

HARRY ATTWELL STEFANO BRASCHI (Gentleman) (Duke of Burgundy) For the Donmar: Training: LAMDA and Yale (also New York), Twelfth University. Theater: includes Night. Theater: includes Danton’s Death (NT), This Hamlet (Orange Tree). Much Is True (Theatre503), Film: includes Playboy. Warm (Nordland Theatre, Radio: includes Pride and Prejudice. Norway), and The Meta- physics of Breakfast (New York Fringe Festival). TOM BEARD Television: includes Sherlock, Secret Diary of a (Duke of Albany) Call Girl, Come Fly with Me, and The Training: Webber Douglas Persuasionists. Academy of Dramatic Art. Theater: includes Apologia RON COOK (Bush); Tusk Tusk (Royal (The Fool) Court); For Services For the Donmar: Hamlet Rendered (Watermill); (also Elsinore/New York), Private Lives (New Wolsey); Nelson (Nuffield); , Helpless, The Holy Terror (Duke of York’s); Three Sisters Juno and the Paycock, and (Playhouse); , Pericles, Henry VI Glengarry Glen Ross. Parts I, II, & III, Richard III (RSC); Macbeth Theater: includes A (Sheffield Crucible);Hamlet (Gielgud/UK tour); Northern Odyssey (Live Theatre); The Seafarer, She Stoops to Conquer (Queen’s/UK tour); Howard Katz, Machine Wreckers, Black Snow Becket (Haymarket/UK tour); and A Madhouse (NT); Singer (Tricycle); Insignificance(Chichester in Goa (UK tour). Film: includes Salmon Fishing Festival); Vassa (Almeida); Art (Wyndham’s); in the Yemen, Hereafter, Vanity Fair, and Bridget Prayers of Sherkin (Old Vic); Our Country’s Jones’ Diary. Television: includes Pete Versus Good, The Recruiting Officer, Cloud Nine, The Life, Hustle, Kingdom, Wallander, Ten Days to Arbor (Royal Court); Slavs, Ecstasy, How I Got War, Midsomer Murders, George Gently, The That Story (Hampstead); Faith Healer (Dublin Fixer, Whistleblowers, Clapham Junction, Silent Abbey/Royal Court/Long Wharf); A Jovial Crew, Witness, Party Animals, Spooks, Robin Hood, The Odyssey, The Dillen, The Crucible, A The Government Inspector, Rosemary and Winter’s Tale (RSC); and Three Sisters Thyme, Holby City, and Poirot. (Greenwich/Albery). Film: includes Hot Fuzz; Confetti; On a Clear Day; The Merchant of PIPPA Venice; Thunderbirds; 24 Hour Party People; BENNETT-WARNER Charlotte Gray; Lucky Break; Chocolat; Quills; (Cordelia) Topsy-Turvy; Secrets and Lies; and The Cook, the Training: RADA. Theater: Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. Television: includes Crocodile includes Garrow’s Law, Riding, Little Dorrit, (Riverside); Ruined The Diary of Anne Frank, , Silent (Almeida); Victory (Bath Witness, Funland, Burn Up, Brunel: The Great Theatre Royal); Caroline, or Ship, , Richard III, and The Change (NT); and The Lion King (Lyceum). Singing Detective. Television: includes in Pieces, Holby City, Lewis, Come Fly with Me, and Case Histories. Radio: includes The White Devil. Who’s Who

MICHAEL HADLEY US tour); Elizabeth Rex (Birmingham Rep); The (Earl of Kent) Prince of Homburg (RSC/Lyric); The Critic Training: Bristol Old Vic. (Manchester Royal Exchange); Family Reunion For the Donmar: Hamlet (RSC); Much Ado About Nothing (Cheek by (also New York), Piaf (also Jowl); Villette, Way Upstream, Leonce and Lena Vaudeville), Othello, The (Sheffield Crucible);Rebecca , Jekyll and Hyde Vortex, and Little Foxes. (Lyceum, Edinburgh); Under Milk Wood, Theater: includes The Arcadia, Napoli Milionaria, Richard III, King Tempest (Oxford Shakespeare Company); Lear (NT); The Churchill Play, Electra, Titus Heroes (Watermill); Coriolanus, Canterbury Andronicus, The Taming of the Shrew, Measure Tales, Richard III, (RSC); The for Measure, Julius Caesar (RSC); and Seagull (Mercury); As You Like It, Don Carlos Coriolanus (Kick Theatre). Film: includes PU- (Sheffield & West End); House and Garden 239, V for Vendetta, Stage Beauty, Being Julia, (Royal & Derngate); Search & Destroy (New Iris, and The Cormorant. Television: includes End); Love’s Work, Intimate Death, Une Marple, Spooks, Doctors, Forgiven, Midsomer Tempête (Gate); The Jew of Malta (Almeida); Murders, ’s Burning, Waiting, Chef, and Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Measure for The Bill. Measure, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Birmingham Rep); DEREK JACOBI The Elephant Man, A Small Family Business (King Lear) (Leicester Haymarket); The Beaux’ Stratagem, For the Donmar: Twelfth The Way of the World (Cambridge Theatre Night, A Voyage Round Company); The Woman in Black (Fortune/UK My Father (also tour); Measure for Measure, and Henry IV Parts I Wyndham’s). Theater: & II (English Touring Theatre). Film: includes The includes The Fairy Queen Boat That Rocked, Unrelated, Three Blind Mice, (Washington, DC); Don The Best Pair of Legs in the Business, All Carlos, The Tempest Coppers Are, and They Ran Before the Wind. (Sheffield Crucible);Hollow Crown (RSC & world Television: includes Churchill at War; Strange; tour); God Only Knows, Uncle Vanya, Love for Paradise Heights; Rough Justice; The Catherine Love (Chichester Festival); Macbeth, The Wheel; The Samaritans; Queen Victoria’s Tempest, Peer Gynt (RSC); Becket (Haymarket Scandal; Life of Shakespeare; No, Mama, No; & UK tour); Richard II, Richard III (Phoenix); and Ashes to Ashes. Breaking the Code (Haymarket, UK tour & New York); Cyrano de Bergerac (US tour); Much Ado DEREK HUTCHINSON About Nothing (RSC & US tour); and Ivanov (Old (Old Servant) Vic). Film: includes Morris: A Life with Bells On, Training: Webber Douglas Adam Resurrected, The Golden Compass, The Academy of Dramatic Art. Riddle, Nanny McPhee, Gosford Park, Gladiator, Theater: includes The Devil Hamlet, Dead Again, and . Television: Inside Him (National includes The Long Firm; Mr. Ambassador; Theatre of Wales); Deep Inquisition; The Gathering Storm; The Jury; Cut (Sherman/UK tour); Frasier; Cadfael; I, Claudius; and Doctor Who. The Oresteia (New York); The Herbal Bed ( Playhouse); Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis (Birmingham Rep/UK tour); Henry VIII (RSC); Dead Funny (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Blithe Spirit (Savoy/UK tour); Oliver Twist (Lyric Hammersmith); Medea (New York/ Photo: Justine Mitchell and Gina McKee, by Johan Persson Who’s Who

PAUL JESSON GINA McKEE (Earl of Gloucester) (Goneril) For the Donmar: Twelfth For the Donmar: Ivanov, Night (also New York). . Theater: Theater: includes Cock, includes Separate Tables , A Lie of the (Chichester Festival); The Mind, The Normal Heart Lover & The Collection (Olivier Award), Bingo (Comedy); The Exonerated (Royal Court); The Cherry (Riverside Studio); Orchard, The Winter’s Tale (The Bridge Project, Aristocrats, Uganda (NT); Old Vic); Awake and Sing!, King Lear (Almeida); Five Kinds of Silence (Lyric Hammersmith); Troilus and Cressida, The Seagull (Edinburgh Hammett’s Apprentice (Royal Court); and Festival); Mary Stuart (Apollo); The Winter’s Tale Fighting for the Dunghill (Warehouse). Film: (Shakespeare’s Globe); Death of a Salesman includes Dive, In the Loop, And When Did You (Edinburgh Lyceum); Rita, Sue and Bob Too and Last See Your Father?, Atonement, Scenes of a A State Affair (Soho); The Graduate (Gielgud); Sexual Nature, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Hamlet, Henry VIII, Bingo, The Tempest, Antony Sisterhood, Wonderland (British Independent Film and Cleopatra, The Winter’s Tale, A Jovial Crew, Award nomination for Best Actress 1999), Notting The Beggar’s , Richard II, Two Hill, and The Croupier. Television: includes The Shakespearean Actors, Troilus and Cressida Silence, Fiona’s Story, The Street, The Old Curiosity (RSC); Mary Stuart, The Devil’s Disciple, Hamlet, Shop, Lewis, Aftermath, The Lavender List, The Ghetto, Hedda Gabler, The Changeling, and Cat Baby War, The Lost Prince, The Forsyte Saga, and on a Hot Tin Roof (NT). Film: includes Coriolanus, Our Friends in the North (BAFTA & Broadcasting Vera Drake, All or Nothing, Acceptable Levels, Press Guild Award winner). and The Ploughman’s Lunch. Television: includes Midsomer Murders, Margaret, The JUSTINE MITCHELL Devil’s Whore, Foyle’s War, The Amazing Mrs. (Regan) Pritchard, Rome, The Glass, and Holding On. Theater: includes The White Guard, The Hour GWILYM LEE We Knew Nothing of Each (Edgar) Other, Philistines, Coram Training: Guildhall School Boy, The House of of Music and Drama. Bernarda Alba, The Night For the Donmar: Hamlet Season (NT); Uncle Vanya (also Elsinore/New York). (Young Vic); Nocturnal (Gate, London); Hedda Theater: includes Danton’s Gabler, Boston Marriage, Footfalls, Pride and Death, Oedipus (NT); The Prejudice, Blithe Spirit, bash (Gate, Dublin); Fairy Queen (Paris Opéra-Comique/New York); Three Sisters, Aristocrats, Shape of Metal, She About Tommy (Southwark Playhouse); and Stoops to Conquer, The House of Bernarda Alba Richard III (RSC). Film: includes The Tourist and (Abbey, Dublin); The Stone (Royal Court); Isle of Dogs. Television: includes Doctors, Ashes Twelfth Night (RSC); and A Midsummer Night’s to Ashes, Waterloo Road, Lewis, and Mutual Dream, Dear Brutus (Nottingham Playhouse). Friends. Film: I Want Candy, A Cock and Bull Story, Imagine Me and You, Inside I’m Dancing, Citizen Verdict, The Honeymooners, Goldfish Memory, and Conspiracy of Silence. Television: includes Wild at Heart, Your Bad Self, Sleep with Me, Waking the Dead, Doctors, Afterlife, New Tricks, and The Painted Lady. Who’s Who

ALEC NEWMAN GIDEON TURNER (Edmund) (Duke of Cornwall) Training: LAMDA and NYT. Training: Drama Centre. Theater: includes Danton’s Theater: includes Visiting Death (NT); The Fastest Mr. Green (Trafalgar Clock in the Universe Studios/UK tour); The (Hampstead/Leicester Changeling (English Curve); Desperately Touring Theatre); Things of Seeking Susan (Novello); Dry Hours (Manchester The Soldier’s Fortune, Andorra (Young Vic); Royal Exchange/Gate); Blue on Blue (Shotgun Plenty (Albery); The Glass Menagerie, Theatre Company/Theatre503); Silverland Translations (Edinburgh Lyceum); Certain Young (Arcola); Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Pilate Men (Almeida); The Recruiting Officer (RSC); Airsick (Bush); Modern Man (New End); (Chichester Festival); and The Revenger’s Richard III, , Edward II (Sheffield Tragedy (Orange Tree). Film: includes A Lonely Crucible); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Love’s Place to Die, Blackwater, The Gene Generation, Labour’s Lost (Regent’s Park); Ghost Stories (St. Moonlight Serenade, The Fifth Patient, Mary’s); The Death of Cool, Heritage Constellation, Staring at the Sun, Four Corners (Hampstead); The Pitchfork Disney (Bolton of Suburbia, Bright Young Things, The Principles Octagon); and Arcadia (UK tour). Film: includes of Lust, The Death of Klinghoffer, Long Time Making Ugly, How to Become a Criminal Dead, and G:MT. Television: includes Silent Mastermind, Loop, and Poppy’s Present. Witness, Hope Springs, Warriors, The Television: includes Doctors, Holby City, Hotel Reichenbach Falls, Spooks, Frankenstein, Babylon, Cromwell: Warts and All, Warrior Children of , Enterprise, , Queen, Starhunter, Dark Realm, Cinderella, True Calling, Angel, Nightflight, Dune, Murder Dalziel and Pascoe, The Stalker’s Apprentice, Rooms, Judge John Deed, The Rag Nymph, Bad Girls (series 1 & 2), Dangerfield, David, Blonde Bombshell, Peak Practice, Dangerfield, Heartbeat, and Casualty. Taggart, and Casualty. ASHLEY ZHANGAZHA AMIT SHAH (King of France) (Oswald) Training: Guildhall School Training: LAMDA. of Music and Drama. Theater: includes Arabian Theater: includes Danton’s Nights (RSC); Rough Cuts: Death (NT), Oliver! The Spiral, Shades, Free (), Outgoing (Royal Court); Whistle Down the Wind The Hour We Knew Nothing (Aldwych), Hey, Mr. of Each Other, Odyssey, Producer! (Lyceum), and Much Ado About The Man of Mode, The Alchemist, Life of Galileo, Nothing (Hackney Empire). Television: includes The Royal Hunt of the Sun (NT); The Hot Zone Lenny Goes to Town and Axon. (Lyric Hammersmith); Twelfth Night (Albery); and Bombay Dreams (Apollo Victoria). Film: includes Guinea Pigs, The Infidel, Lost Paradise, It’s a Wonderful Afterlife, 13 Semesters, Like Minds, Daljinder’s Training, and The Blue Tower. Television: includes Whites, Hustle, Ingenious, Casualty, Benidorm (series 3), The Palace, Honest, Lead Balloon, Afternoon Play: Are You Kim’s Wife?, and Life Begins (series 3). Who’s Who

MICHAEL GRANDAGE (Director) County Spelling Bee, , Red (also New Grandage is artistic director of the Donmar. York; Critics’ Circle Award, Tony Award), Hamlet For the Donmar: Red (also New York; Tony (also Elsinore/New York), Madame de Sade, Award), Hamlet (also Elsinore/New York), Twelfth Night, Ivanov, Othello, (also Los Madame de Sade, Twelfth Night, Ivanov (2008 Angeles), Frost/Nixon (also Gielgud/New York/US Critics’ Circle Award for Best Director, shared tour), (Piccadilly), Don Juan in with The Chalk Garden; 2008 Evening Standard Soho, , Henry IV, World Music, Award for Best Director, shared with The Chalk Caligula (Evening Standard Award), The Vortex, Garden & Othello), The Chalk Garden, Othello, Privates on Parade, Merrily We Roll Along, John Gabriel Borkman, , Frost/ Passion Play, Good, and The Bullet. Theater: Nixon (also Gielgud/New York/US tour), Guys includes Backbeat (Glasgow Citizens), A View and Dolls (Piccadilly; 2006 Olivier Award for from the Bridge (Duke of York’s), King Lear/The Outstanding Musical Production), The Cut (also Seagull (RSC), (Adelphi), Macbeth, The UK tour), The Wild Duck (2006 Critics’ Circle Jew of Malta, The Embalmer (Almeida), Danton’s Award for Best Director), Grand Hotel (2005 Death, Stuff Happens, Marriage Play/Finding the Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Sun, , Power (NT; Olivier Award), Production; 2004 Evening Standard Award for Oleanna (Garrick), Loyal Women, Fucking Best D Director), Pirandello’s Henry IV (also UK Games (Royal Court), The Caretaker, and All My tour), After Miss Julie, Caligula (2004 Olivier Sons (Bristol Old Vic). For Sheffield Crucible: Award for Best Director), The Vortex, Privates on (also Albery; Critics’ Parade, Merrily We Roll Along—2001 Olivier Circle Award), The Tempest (also Old Vic), Award for Best Musical & 2000 Critics’ Circle for Richard III, Don Juan, Edward II, The Country Best Director, and Passion Play—2001 Critics’ Wife, Six Degrees of Separation, and As You Like Circle & 2000 Evening Standard Awards for Best It (also Lyric Hammersmith). Film: includes The Director, Good. As artistic director of Sheffield Magic Flute. Opera: includes Billy Budd Theatres (1999—2005), includes: Don Carlos (Glyndebourne) and Madame Butterfly (2005 Evening Standard Award; TMA for Best (Houston). Director; 2005 German British Forum Award; also Gielgud), Suddenly Last Summer (also NEIL AUSTIN (Lighting Designer) Albery), As You Like It (2000 Critics’ Circle; For the Donmar: The 25th Annual Putnam Evening Standard Awards for Best Director; County Spelling Bee, Passion, The Prince of 2001 South Bank Show Award; also Lyric Homburg, Red (also New York; Tony Award; Hammersmith), The Tempest (also Old Vic), Drama Desk Award), Life Is a Dream, A Richard III, and Edward II. Other: includes Streetcar Named Desire, Hamlet (also New Danton’s Death (NT); Evita (Adelphi); The York), Madame de Sade, Twelfth Night, Piaf Doctor’s Dilemma, and The Jew of Malta (also Vaudeville/Buenos Aires/Madrid), Parade (Almeida/UK tour). Opera: includes Billy Budd (Knight of Illumination Award, also Los (Glyndebourne) and Madame Butterfly Angeles—Garland Award), John Gabriel (Houston). Grandage has been given honorary Borkman, Don Juan in Soho, The Cryptogram, doctorates from Sheffield Hallam University and Frost/Nixon (also Gielgud/New York/US tour), Sheffield University where he was also a visiting The Wild Duck, The Cosmonaut’s Last Message professor. He is currently a visiting professor at to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former University College Falmouth and has recently Soviet Union, Henry IV, World Music, After Miss been appointed the new President of Central Julie, and Caligula. Theater: includes Welcome School of Speech and Drama. to Thebes, Women Beware Women, The White Guard, London Assurance, The Observer, CHRISTOPHER ORAM (Designer) People Very Nice, Mrs. Affleck, For the Donmar: The 25th Annual Putnam Oedipus, Her Naked Skin, Afterlife, The Emperor Who’s Who

Jones, Philistines, The Man of Mode, Thérèse has been casting director at the Donmar Raquin, The Seafarer, Henry IV Parts I & II, Fix Warehouse since 1992, working with both Up, The Night Season, A Prayer for Owen Michael Grandage, and previously Sam Mendes, Meany, The Walls, Further Than the Furthest as artistic director. Thing (NT); King Lear, The Seagull, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, King John, STEPHANIE ARDITTI (Costume Supervisor) Julius Caesar, Two Gentleman of Verona (RSC); For the Donmar: Madame de Sade, Mary Stuart The Priory, Tusk Tusk, Flesh Wound, Trust (Royal (also Apollo), and Pirandello’s Henry IV. Theater: Court); Mrs. Klein, Judgment Day, The includes Danton’s Death, The White Guard, The Homecoming, Marianne Dreams, Dying for It, Power of Yes, Mrs. Affleck, Triple Bill—Con- Tom & Viv, Romance, Macbeth (Almeida); No nections, The Enchantment, Philistines, Fixup, Man’s Land (Duke of York’s); Dealer’s Choice Power—Olivier Award (NT); Julius Caesar, A (Trafalgar Studios); A Life in the Theatre (Apollo); Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, Merry and Japes (Haymarket). Dance: includes Wives: The Musical, All’s Well That Ends Well; Cinderella (Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures), (Olivier Award); Othello, Macbeth (RSC); As One, Rhapsody (Royal Ballet), The Soldier’s Frontline (Globe); Sinatra (London Palladium/ Tale (ROH2 & Tokyo), The Canterville Ghost tour); Evita (Adelphi); And Then There Were (ENB), and Pineapple Poll (Birmingham Royal None (Gielgud); and Acorn Antiques—The Ballet). Opera: includes Madame Butterfly Musical (Haymarket). (Houston). TITAS HALDER (Associate Director) ADAM CORK (Composer & Sound Designer) This is Halder’s fifth production under the For the Donmar: Red (also New York; Tony Resident Assistant Director Bursary Scheme at Award), , Hamlet (also the Donmar. This scheme is supported by Jon New York), Madame de Sade, Ivanov, Creditors, and NoraLee Sedmak and the Sedmak Wooten The Chalk Garden, Othello, John Gabriel Family Foundation. Previously he assisted Jamie Borkman, Don Juan in Soho, Frost/Nixon (also Lloyd on Passion and Polar Bears, David Gielgud/New York/US tour), The Cut, The Wild Leveaux on The Late Middle Classes, and Duck, Henry IV, and Caligula. Theater: includes Jonathan Munby on The Prince of Homburg. He scores and sound designs for Enron (Headlong/ was previously a creative associate at the Bush Chichester/Royal Court/Broadway), All’s Well that Theatre and literary associate at the Finborough Ends Well, Phèdre, Time and the Conways, Theatre. As director: includes Write to Rock Danton’s Death (NT); , (Clwyd Theatr Cymru), Painting a Wall No Man’s Land (Duke of York’s); Macbeth (Finborough). As assistant director: includes (Chichester/New York); Six Characters in Search Suddenlossofdignity.com (Bush/UK tour), of an Author, Don Carlos (Gielgud); Romeo and Stovepipe (Hightide, Bush, & NT), Sons of York Juliet, The Tempest, Speaking Like Magpies (Finborough), Follow (Finborough), and The (RSC); The Glass Menagerie (Apollo); The Last Constant Prince (Oxford Playhouse). As writer: Days of Judas Iscariot, The Late Henry Moss he trained with the ’s Critical (Almeida); and Suddenly Last Summer (Albery). Mass program. Writing includes Jugantor Film: includes scores for Macbeth, Bust, and (Finborough Vibrant Festival), Replica (Nabokov Tripletake. Television: includes Frances Tuesday, Present: Tense), and Feeding Me (Paines Plough Re-ignited, and Imprints. Radio: includes Losing Later). Rosalind, The Luneberg Variation, The Colonel- Bird, Don Carlos, Othello, and On the Ceiling. ARTHUR GAFFIN (American Stage Manager) For the Donmar: Red. Broadway: Bloody Bloody ANNE MCNULTY (Casting Director) Andrew Jackson, Superior Donuts, The McNulty has worked in casting for 19 years and Philanthropist, The Seagull, Les Liaisons Who’s Who

Dangereuses, Pygmalion, Journey’s End, The DONMAR THEATRE STAFF Times They Are A-Changin’, Lennon, Pacific Artistic Director Michael Grandage Overtures, Jumpers, Nine, The Elephant Man, Executive Producer Nick Giles Dance of Death, George Gershwin Alone, General Manager Jo Danvers Betrayal, Marlene, A Funny Thing Happened…, Assistant General Manager Miriam Green Indiscretions, Twilight of the Golds, Solitary PA to the Executive Frankie Bridges Confinement, Three Penny Opera, and Wild Casting & Creative Associate Anne McNulty Honey. National tours: Fosse, M. Butterfly, Casting Assistant Vicky Richardson and Sleuth. Regional theaters: Pasadena Director of Development Chantelle Culshaw Playhouse, Long Wharf Theatre, and Deputy Director of Development Williamstown Theatre Festival. Stephanie Dittmer Development OfficerAlex Jones THE DONMAR Development Administrator Katie Wellington Under the artistic leadership of Michael Director of Marketing Jonathan Aplin Grandage, the Donmar has presented some of Press Representative Kate Morley for London’s most memorable award-winning Blueprint PR (07970 465 648) theatrical experiences, and has garnered critical Finance Manager Jodie Cramphorn acclaim at home and abroad. The theater has a Office AdministratorLizzie Vogler diverse artistic policy that includes new writing, Deputy Production Manager Anna Anderson contemporary reappraisals of European classics, Head of Wardrobe Tansy Blaik-Kelly British and American drama, and small;scale Deputy Head of Wardrobe Sharon Pearson musical theater. Over the last 19 years the Associate Directors , theater has created a reputation associated with Resident Assistant Director Simon Evans artistic excellence: it has showcased the talent of Education OfficerRosie Dalling some of the industry’s premier creative artists and has built an unparalleled catalogue of work. ADMINISTRATION As well as presenting at least six productions a 41 Earlham Street, Seven Dials, year at its home in Covent Garden, the Donmar London WC2H 9LX presents work nationally and internationally. Tel: (0)20 7240 4882 Fax: (0)20 7240 4878 Every year the Donmar aims to tour one in-house Email: [email protected] production in the UK; Frost/Nixon toured across Website: donmarwarehouse.com the US. The Donmar also undertook a year-long residency in the West End at the Wyndham’s DONMAR WAREHOUSE PROJECTS LTD. Theatre, which led to a Broadway transfer of BOARD OF DIRECTORS Hamlet. Parade transferred to Los Angeles and Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury (Chair) Piaf played in Madrid following a successful Simon Meadon (Secretary) engagement in Argentina. Other Donmar productions to play in New York include Mary Dominic Casserley Stuart and Creditors. Most recently, Red played Diane Henry Lepart on Broadway to critical acclaim, winning six Tony Stephanie McClelland Awards in 2010. Donmar-generated productions Simon Meadon have received 36 Olivier Awards, 27 Critics’ David Parkhill Circle Awards, 21 Evening Standard Awards, two Ed Richards South Bank Awards, and 20 from Jill Shaw Ruddock 10 Broadway productions. Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury Sir Peter Williams Roger Wingate On King Lear

by Russell Jackson The effect is all the greater for being grounded in commonplace emotional situations. When In King Lear, written in the autumn of 1606 and Goneril and Regan reveal their true feelings, performed and revised in the course of the fol- these are expressed at first as plausible, if selfish, lowing four years, violently opposed forces of responses to the wayward behavior of a difficult good and evil all but cancel each other out: sight old parent. He has always been “rash” and now, and blindness, speech and silence, loyalty and with his aggressively satirical Fool and his treachery. Humanity is set at a discount in a entourage of unruly knights, he is going to be world where self-interest dominates and man’s an appallingly inconvenient house guest. The life is no more than a beast’s. Such redemption arguments are ordinary and recognizable enough as can be achieved by the play’s virtuous to be uncomfortable for any audience. But Lear characters is bought at great cost. In scene after is a king: to oppose his anger is an act of scene, situation after situation, the play drama- treason, and to frustrate him in any way a tizes the clashes between these opposing forces. betrayal of the loyalty due to him. It is also, at The play moves forward with extraordinary speed least in Lear’s version of the universe, and artistic economy. The apparent geniality of tantamount to a defiance of the gods. the opening conversation—in which Gloucester tells Kent about his illegitimate son Edmund—is Who these gods might be is an open question. soon left behind. Rules of hospitality, kinship, There are remnants of Christian belief—Lear and political fealty are broken within minutes of “bound as on a wheel of fire” seeing Cordelia as stage time. Lear’s misguided belief that by a “soul in bliss” for example—but they do not dividing his kingdom “future strife might be provide the play with a coherent religious prevented” is the consequence of his over- framework. At various times the Greek and powering desire to be told he is loved rather than Roman gods are invoked (Lear swears “by the product of any real political understanding or Jupiter”) while at others there is an appeal to strategy, and the madness he subsequently some kind of pantheism, presided over by descends into is a more violent version of this. Nature. Edmund enlists her as his goddess in As so often in Shakespeare’s work, the words proclaiming his right to be valued as highly, if not seem to have a kind of uncanny awareness, as above, his legitimate brother. Lear summons yet hidden even from the characters themselves, Nature in his terrible curse on Goneril (“into her when Lear announces the dividing of his womb convey sterility…”), and it is Nature king-dom as his “darker purpose.” Lear will whose remedies are enlisted by Cordelia as find out the true darkness that his “purpose” medicine for her father. Then there is Fortune, would produce. who may turn her wheel to bring one person into favor and another into despairing decline. (When Cordelia, Lear’s honest daughter, and Kent, his Edmund is mortally wounded he sardonically faithful henchman, are dismissed angrily, and reflects that “the wheel is come full circle. I am eloquent but empty professions of love prevail. here.”) Nature or Fortune might be benevolent, Lear is told bluntly by Kent to “see better,” a but should always be treated with respect as lesson he learns only by passing through a storm potentially destructive. In any case, to a skeptic without and madness within himself, until he like Edmund, even the invocation of Nature may can lecture the blinded Gloucester on the realities be hollow, on a par with belief in the influence of he himself failed to perceive: “a man may see the stars, “an admirable evasion of whoremaster how this world goes without eyes.” Edmund, man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge Gloucester’s bastard son, betrays his legitimate of a star.” The many animals that haunt the brother and his father, his rise in status being play’s language are for the most part feral and balanced by his brother’s becoming an outlaw pitiless and, like the storm, they exist in the real and assuming the disguise of a mad beggar. In world but are also metaphors for the human effect, from the second scene, status, wealth, condition. Lear in his “high rage” strives to outdo and power have become goals to be achieved the elements that batter him and the mad ruthlessly at the expense of honor or virtue. (“Bedlam”) beggar Poor Tom strikes Lear as an example of “unaccommodated man,” reduced to a state no better than a beast’s. On King Lear

In the scenes on the heath and in the hovel, the forward in the replies of Edgar and Albany: “Or play brings together three complementary images image of that horror?”—“Fall and Cease.” Some of unreason: Lear has been driven into madness; measure of justice has been achieved by the final Edgar has assumed it as a disguise; and the Fool scene but the losses are irreparable. Kent seems is a professional zany. As the Fool warns, “This to suggest that he is near to death—following his cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.” master in a “journey” towards it—and in the final In the aftermath of the storm, when Lear moments all that can be expressed is a qualified encounters Gloucester in the open country near and enigmatic hope for the future: “The oldest Dover, the king has taken on the role of his hath borne most. We that are young / Shall never vanished Fool. It is he who now voices wisdom see so much nor live so long.” in satirical speeches but, unlike the Fool, he veers off into deluded and obsessive savagery. In The sense of a world near its end, and the his madness the storm prompts him to imagine discounting of all moral certainties, recurs revenge to be taken by the gods in which his throughout, from Gloucester’s anxiety that own grievances are generalized in term of vivid eclipses are warnings of an impending snapshots of banal wrongdoing: “Let the great catastrophe to the storm, which is as much a gods, / That keep this fearful pudder o’er our reflection of human madness as any sign of heads, / Find out their enemies now.” In a later anger in the gods. Lear does not complete the scene, Lear lurches from a cynical attack on thought that begins when he insists to Gloucester hypocrisy by the administrators of justice into a that “When we are born, we cry that we are horrific diatribe of disgust at women’s sexuality: come to this great stage of fools.” The implication “Down to the girdle do the gods inhabit. / Below is that just as “we came crying hither” we will go is all the Fiend’s.” In a play in which it is a short crying hence, but “this great stage” implies an step from imagined cruelty to its execution in audience as well as actors. The stage/world reality, Lear’s vividly misogynistic imagination, seems suddenly to be seen from a distance, and expressed here and elsewhere, is especially behind the thought lurks the possibility that the disturbing, an element of that darkness intimated gods treat humankind as a cruel entertainment. by his first announcement of the division of In Gloucester’s own words: “As flies to wanton his kingdom. boys are we to th’ gods, / They kill us for their sport.” In Hamlet and Othello, the tragedies In the course of the play Lear does rediscover an immediately preceding King Lear, human moti- understanding of virtuous love, turned into a vations and desires wreak havoc in a world that commodity to be traded in the ritual division of seems likely to survive even when the malig- his kingdom at the beginning of the play. Even nancy at work in them remains unexplained. when he has discarded Cordelia and Kent, Lear Denmark will be ruled by another prince, this maintains an affectionate regard for the Fool, and time from Norway, and the Venetian state will be from that we might imagine that his former saddened but not shaken by the news of events treatment of Cordelia was of a similar nature. in Cyprus. But in King Lear there seems to be Love, though, cannot bring the dead back to life little hope for the “gored state” to be sustained by or forestall the fortune that has killed them. Albany and Edgar. There are few grounds for confidence in any of the powers that might Lear is seen by himself and others as a Job-like protect it or whatever gods may be responsible figure, a symbol of human suffering, in his case for human well-being. We are left with the brought down on him in great measure by his possibility that this may be a valid premonition own folly. In Act Four, Gloucester, meeting Lear of the “promised end” and that it may not be again, exclaims: “O ruined piece of Nature! This long coming. great world / Shall so wear out to nought.” At the end of the play the Christian concept of the Day Russell Jackson is Allardyce Nicoll Professor of Drama of Judgement seems to be invoked when Lear at the University of Birmingham. His recent publi- appears with the dead Cordelia in his arms. In a cations include Shakespeare Films in the Making and chorus-like moment that frames the stage image the second edition of The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film, both published by Cambridge of the king and his daughter, Kent asks, “Is this University Press. the promised end?” and the thought is carried