cooee:
continuous sharp, fit words for experiencing those who cannot grasp the
innocent-lovely words of the Bard.
My appreciation for your rich "snap" as well as your evident gift.
Judy
----- Original Message -----
From: "cooee" : theatre snap Wed 17 August 2005
Superlatives
in the ads for Lear
softened us up for quite a night:
King Lear at the Melbourne
Theatre Company:
ŒThe most perfect specimen
of the dramatic art existing in the world¹
- Percy Bysshe Shelley.
ŒNo play like this anywhereŠ
is so terrifically human¹
- Alfred Lord Tennyson.
ŒShakespeare¹s greatest play¹
- The Daily Telegraph.
(Now why should The Telegraph
carry such authority?)
Well, we went, and the folk on stage,
they did their level best - a low level.
The veteran in the role of Lear
early hit his shrill top anger note,
the others hissed, fast-talkers
with lines uncomfortable to them.
The men all wore grey business suits,
the women power-dressed, except
of course Cordelia,
gently understated.
Lear¹s Fool was the same girl,
a slip of a thing in a soiled slip;
a voice-mike made her echo wanly.
At the interval we hunkered down.
Rain set in the length of the wide front row.
We in the third row didn¹t get splashed.
Through the steady downpour
agony was evident OK,
sheltering near a wrecked car body
in a side-turned garbage skip.
The gouging elicited audience shrieks.
The fights were with silver pistols,
bang bang bang. Gloucester rolled
from the roof of that car wreck
to a soiled mattress. I closed my eyes till
the old words stirred me again:
never never never never never.
17 August 2005
Max Richards
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