THEATRE REVIEW: Lear - Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester.

This production – titled “Lear” - of Shakespeare’s classic “King Lear” featured an all-female and non binary cast; and was set in a world of power suits, hi-vis jackets and bin bags. It whipped through the text at a crisp pace, and had some good performances from the actors here at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester, and was presented by HER Productions, Unseemly Women and Girl Gang Manchester.

Very interestingly, though the text kept all the masculine terms of address and reference – “king”, “lord”, “husband” etc – the actors were not playing male characters. Zoey Barnes’s costume design had deliberate touches of earrings, lipstick and pointy shoes around the power suits; and the actors were using feminine personas. This put it into a strange alternate Sapphic reality world, but it hung together, and it worked.

This framing was particularly prominent in Christine Mackie’s performance as Lear. She began in a boardroom, and by the end was a hobo on the street. It did show that however far a powerful man falls, a powerful woman still falls further. Towards the end, she was a frail little figure in a wheelchair, bewildered and elderly, and a male performer could not have been further removed from power. Mackie’s performance was confident and strong-voiced, with good shifts in dynamic. As for her daughters, Gina Fillingham was a spoilt, petulant and sour-faced Goneril, that seemed to be turning on her own insides during the cursing of her womb speech. Teddy Oyediran was a poisonously languorous Regan, dripping wealthy ennui around the stage. Ella Heywood was a bright and hopeful Cordelia, with the freshness of youth.

Emily Heyworth was solidly worthy as Goneril’s husband Albany. Amy Du Quesne matched Regan’s lethalness as her husband Cornwall, and using the high heel of her own stiletto shoe to gouge out Gloucester’s eyes was a very nice touch. Nellie Fogarty was prissily contemptuous as Goneril’s steward Oswald. Adelina Lece-Bere gave a deeply sincere performance as Lear’s loyal servant, the exiled Kent in disguise. Phoebe Farrington kept scatty company as the Fool. Fiona Scott was a warmly vulnerable and touching Gloucester, particularly after being blinded. Her illegitimate son Edmund was given cynical charm by Haylie Jones, and the counter-image at the end of Edmund running the boardroom was played with relish. Alice Proctor really shone as the legitimate son Edgar, who after being outlawed became disguised as the madman Tom O’ Bedlam. When she crawled out in a rubbish dump wearing what looked like a sleeping bag fashioned into a cape, Proctor’s performance was reminiscent of any street person whose mind is damaged from mental health issues or drugs. And then she snapped back to Edgar for her lucid soliloquies.

Director Kayleigh Hawkins did sustain the world she created, and at times there were flashes of an interesting director’s imagination at work. But only in flashes. Other times, it did look like she was just skating over the script and had too superficial an understanding of it. It could simply have been the constraints of doing such a rich and large play with the limited resources of a small independent company.

Overall though, an unusual interpretation with some fresh details.

Reviewer - Thalia Terpsichore
on - 8.6.23