Gender-swapped Lear brings new life to the Bard
King Lear
(out of 4) Written by William Shakespeare. Directed by Alistair Newton. Until Sept. 3 at the High Park Amphitheatre, 1873 Bloor St. W. CanadianStage.com or 416-368-3110. The opening of King Lear this week marks the 35th anniversary of Canadian Stage’s summer Shakespeare component of its annual programming, Shakespeare in High Park, the longest-running outdoor theatre series in Canada. This King Lear also stars Diane D’Aquila in the genderswapped title role, a Canadian theatre vet who performed as Titania in the first-ever High Park production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1983.
But this King (or Queen) Lear is also a testament to the mercy that outdoor theatre productions must throw themselves to the elements: Even with such a storied cast and program, opening night was still buzzy with the threat of rain from dark, cloudy skies overhead, and the lastminute casting change that required director Alistair Newton to take the stage (script in hand) to play Lear’s Fool, when actor Robert Persichini had to withdraw from the next week of performances due to health reasons. Besides being a wholesome summer tradition, outdoor theatre is often the definition of “the show must go on.” (Looking on the bright side, there were no outbursts from political protesters at this performance.)
Thursday night’s performance couldn’t completely escape the nerves from these kind of uncontrollable factors, but a fortunate stage presence was D’Aquila, holding the fort as the mad Queen Lear, first appearing as an invalid in a stark white nightgown and adopting Lear’s quintessential blind arrogance as she’s dressed in an imposing black gown by her attendants (when she stands, she reveals her seat to be half throne, half torture device, with cuffs attached to the arms and small spikes covering the seat and backrest). From this moment, Newton establishes that this world might have a female leader, but it’s by no means a matriarchal system.
Queen Lear is still dressed in bodymorphing hoop skirts and corsets, as are her daughters, and get power from their physical images. Newton’s Fool, whose clothes replicate that of his royal majesty and wears bold female makeup, is a walking disrupter to the traditional gender norms that rule this society. As a queen in a king’s world, D’Aquila’s arrogance appears even grosser, in both the repulsiveness of the actions she takes because of it as well as the fact that she’s forcing her own daughters to participate in the same system she did.
As she goes mad in the wilderness, a childlike giggle emerges from Queen Lear alongside a maternal, nurturing instinct that was previously unseen, with a hauntingly hollow look in D’Aquila’s face. Madness has let another side of the Queen emerge — one that, one assumes, has been oppressed for most of her life. It makes her eventual reconnection with Cordelia (a wonderful Amelia Sargisson, who does her own gender-swap by wearing a man’s armour and sword to lead her French army back to England, freeing another previously unseen side to her as well) all the more touching, and Lear’s carrying of the dead Cordelia onto the stage all the more tragic.
Newton also gives another spin to Edmund (Brett Dahl), giving him a gay (or at least, sexually fluid) identi- ty. (Forgive the reliance on stereotypes, but emphasizing words in Edmund’s speech like “Work!” and “Fierce” definitely sends a certain message.) As the bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester (Jason Cadieux), it adds another layer to the rift between Edmund, his macho father and his do-gooder half-brother Edgar. But this element of the story could have been explored further, especially as Edmund seduces his way in between the Lear sisters Goneril (Naomi Wright) and Regan (Hannah Wayne Philips).
As the artistic director of Ecce Homo Theatre and the creators of works like Of a Monstrous Child: A gaga musical (an original musical based on Lady Gaga and queer performance history produced at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in 2013), it’s refreshing to see Newton retain elements of his signature esthetic and personality in this (noticeably more mainstream) avenue, though at time it felt constrained or held back. This might be remedied when Persichini, such a confident and charming performer, returns to play the Fool, as it was hard not to imagine his potential presence and how it would impact the overall atmosphere of King Lear on opening night.
After all, like in the play, maybe some more time in the wilderness will bring out the cast’s madder sides — this one might be worth a revisit.