Every year, you can count on Bell Shakespeare to bring the Bard’s best megalomaniacal leaders and tragic figures to life for a blockbuster season. This winter, for the first time in over a decade, the prestigious company is revisiting one of his most captivating despots: King Lear.
Starring veteran actor of stage and screen Robert Menzies in the titular role and led by artistic director Peter Evans, this haunting classic will be performed in the round, in the intimate setting of The Neilson Nutshell at Bell Shakespeare’s home in the Walsh Bay Arts Precinct. Evans and designer Anna Tregloan have drawn from the play’s pagan setting, with the action unfolding beneath a sculptural model of the solar system which extends out over the audience. In this evocative space, the ensemble cast explores central themes of truth, politics, family, succession, authority and religion.
Written during Shakespeare’s later years of life, King Lear tells the bleak tale of a tyrant king whose plan for succession slowly leads to a tragic end. In exchange for a share of his kingdom, he demands declarations of love from his three daughters, who must prove their unquestioning obedience (a premise that will no doubt sound familiar to Succession fans).
When the praise from his youngest and best-loved daughter Cordelia falls short, Lear exiles her, and divides everything between the remaining two. With his title officially abdicated, he’s quickly turned out by his deceptive daughters who he thought would always worship him. After a lifetime of being the law, the lowly king slowly begins to lose his mind.
Menzies brings an entirely unique interpretation to the mad monarch, reflecting his four decades of experience working on some of the great productions in Australia’s theatre history, including previous roles with Bell Shakespeare where he has played the likes of Polonius in Hamlet, and the tough-minded Friar in Romeo and Juliet.
The rest of the cast includes Tamara Lee Bailey as Regan, Shameer Birges as Albany, Jeremi Campese as Oswald, Melissa Kahraman as Cordelia and the Fool, Alex King as Edgar and France, James Lugton as Gloucester, Lizzie Schebesta as Goneril, Michael Wahr as Cornwall, Janine Watson as Kent and Darius Williams as Edmund.
King Lear will play from June 14 – July 20. Tickets start at $37 and you can book here.