Recently my school did a modern day rendition of William Shakespeare's King Lear. Instead of having Lear be the king of Britain, he was the CEO of a high ranking international company - Lear International. They changed the first scene from being set in Lear's throne room, into being a press conference, in which he divided his "kingdom" (shares and subsidiaries) between his three daughters, as he comes to the time of his retirement from the company. The two eldest daughter's, Goneril & Regan, hauty as they are, know that if they over exaggerate there true feelings for their father that he will give them larger amounts of the company. The youngest, Cordelia, the only one who truly loves her father is left in the dust, knowing that she cannot lie to her father, she tells him that she loves him according to her duty, and that she cannot speak like her sisters have, supposedly loving their father all; even though they are married. Lear is very put out by this and banishes Cordelia and gives the remaining portions of the company to her sisters. This is where Lear makes his fatal mistake, scene 1 (wow, isn't that fast?), he banishes the one person who actually treated him like a child should treat her father. Lear has set in motion a train of events that not only leads to his own madness and death, but some rather nasty consequences for all the other principal characters.
The stage was a throne room, that the throne could be changed into may other props (individual seats, stocks, a bed, etc.), with a large powerpoint screen behind it. I really liked how they set it up, although I wish they had a larger budget that they could have made some of the actual settings for some of the scenes, although it was kind of cool, of how it was left up mostly to imagination. I also loved how they turned all of the servants into secret service agents, and how the fool became a (quite-interestingly dressed; shiny purple shirt, tight black pants, and silver knee high combat boots) rapper. *John, with you in that outfit you reminded my of Vanilla Ice, it was quite a frightening flash back.
I would have to say that my favorite character, and one of the hero's is the "multiple personality" Edgar. The way that his scene's were choreographed, especially his fight scene with Edmund were amazing. *One thing Jimmy, when you did the alley scene as "Poor Tom", all I could think of was Gullum!
I absolutely LOVED the play, and congratulate all of you that put your month's of day after day read through's and constant nagging for not having your lines right on cue. You guys went through many sleepless nights because of this masterpiece, and you did it! You made it through, congrats, NOW GO TO BED!
- pictures to come
