Shakespeare’s King Lear has been staged countless times since it was written, though each production brings something new to the 400-year-old work.
Kimberley Rampersad is directing King Lear, the first Shakespearean play to hit the stage at the Stratford Festival this season.
Oft toted as perhaps Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy, Rampersad told StratfordToday that its endurance comes down to the humanity of the piece.
“We relish in revisiting it because of how it reveals the human condition,” Rampersad said. “For better or otherwise, how we have not evolved past the state that (Shakespeare) speaks about in the play … in that sense, it's timeless.”
King Lear tells the story of the titular king, who divides his kingdom between two of his daughters in his old age. Becoming increasingly more insane, King Lear’s family – and his kingdom – dangles upon the precipice.
While the story is about politics and power, Rampersad said that it is ultimately about family, loyalty, and the generational gap between young and the old.
The theme for this year’s festival is duty versus desire. This conflict can be best seen in the character of Cordelia, Lear’s youngest and favourite daughter, who is exiled for the majority of the play when she pushes back against her father’s wishes.
According to Rampersad, Cordelia embodies this conflict. She has a duty to stay loyal, though a desire to speak the truth. The audience will think it is a complicated relationship, and one which ebbs and flows throughout the play. Both conflict with each other but both are right all the same.
As one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, King Lear has appeared on many stages over the years. Rampersad explained that as a director she has tried not to think about how often other creatives have worked this play, but rather think about how it is her team’s first time.
She called the process the “alchemy of the group.”
“Yes we have some of the same elements, the most important being the play,” she reasoned. “But then with all these new people it necessarily becomes something different … I keep myself present. I don’t turn my mind to what has happened before because I might miss something brilliant that’s happening right now in the space in front of me.”
Rampersad said that is what makes the Stratford Festival so great and such an anomaly. As rehearsals have gone on, and they moved into the Festival Theatre where it will be staged, the creative team has expanded. Not only do they have a director, designer, actors, but now they have stage managers, lighting and sound designers, coaches – and assistants. The scale that the Festival operates at is not often seen in North America.
All of these people come together to add different elements into that alchemy of the show.
King Lear is a violent production. There are lots of fights, blood, and war being staged. Through all of that, Rampersad said that the language of the play is what excited her – and the actors who are providing life to those words.
Notably, Paul Gross stars as the aging king. Gross debuted in Stratford twenty years ago in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Rampersad is excited for the opportunity.
“I hope I am really cherishing it and showing up to meet the moment … to be able to do this play in one of the greatest theatre companies in North America.”
Previews for King Lear begin today (Monday). Opening night is May 30. The show runs until Oct. 29.
To purchase tickets visit the Festival’s website.
Director’s Notes is an ongoing series from StratfordToday, featuring interviews with Stratford Festival directors; discussing their project, their scope, and their goals for this year’s production.
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