The lights dim, signalling the start of the play. As the music starts, and the actors waltz onto the stage, the audience finds themselves in the captivating world of medieval England. The festive mood builds up the audience’s expectation for an unforgettable experience, which is precisely what the play provides. King Lear at Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival, directed by Dennis Garnhum, is a powerful play about family mutiny, and the tragic downfall of a king. The play, written by Shakespeare, addresses the perturbing but prevalent problem of family conflict. Despite having been written four hundred years ago, it is still relevant today as it raises the issue of inadequate parenting and elderly negligence. The synergistic collaboration …show more content…
Due to miscommunication, Lear casts off his favourite daughter, Cordelia (Andrea Rankin) and lets his two other less genuine daughters, Goneril (Colleen Wheeler) and Regan (Jennifer Lines), inherit and rule all of his land. He decides to take turns living with the two daughters, and maintain a hundred knights to serve him. However, Lear is not being treated as well as he was expecting when living with his daughters. After suffering a few indignities Lear runs off into the storm in a frenzy, triggering a war between Cordelia, now Queen of France, and England. In a subplot, Edmund (Michael Blake), the bastard of Earl of Gloucester (David Marr) plots to overtake Edgar (Nathan Schmidt) as the legitimate heir of Gloucester, and successfully has Gloucester driving Edgar out. Driven by his hunger for more power, Edmund then betrays Gloucester and takes his place as the Earl, with Goneril and Regan fighting over each other for his love. Faced with the arbitrariness of the authoritarian fathers, and the impropriety and the callousness of the children, the audience is torn between the two opposing factions and forced to consider what is right, or natural, in a parent-child