Kevin McNally does an incredible job as King Lear in this presentation of a live performance ay the recently reconstructed Globe Theatre. He reaches the heights of passion and frustration and madness requisite in the role, and truly has the audience feeling for him by the end of this very sad play after they probably thought him a dim witted simpleton after the first few scenes. Sirine Saba also caught my attention with a very sexy take on Regan's infatuation with Edmund after (and before?) the death of her husband Cornwall, while Emily Bruni was also quite suitably conniving in the role of her evil sister Goneril. I've seen more convincing Edmunds than that presented by Ralph Davis (Raul Julia's from Central Park in the 70s is still the outstanding one in my opinion), but the portrayal of Edgar by Joshua James was quite well done. The director even had him enter the audience with the 'groundlings' to apply the mud for his transformation into Poor Tom. The battle scene with semi-excessive use of drums and the strangely designed swords (or were they staffs?) lacked some of required intensity, as did the minimal use of some smoke effects to get across the idea of the storm into which the deranged King is sent out by his wilful daughters. Still, Nancy Meckler did a highly commendable job in getting the full emotional impact from her actors: this, after all, is what makes Shakespeare so riveting. The delivery of those exceptionally insightful words with the sensitivity of the passion they so truly attempt to present makes all the staging, costumes and sound effects the mere artifice they really are: it's his words, his language, his turn of phrase, and the ability of an actor to express them just so that makes his plays work, and made this one work so well in my opinion.
