"Lear's Shadow" at The Marsh

Earlier this week I had a weird dream, that I had been cast in a play. A real, professional play, by actual, serious theater people. I thought this quite odd, because I really have no desire to be on stage. Never have, really. I'm quite content to sit in the audience and kibitz.

So tonight the family went to see "Lear's Shadow" at The Marsh in Berkeley. In part this was motivated by the fact that my daughter just did a paper on "King Lear," analyzing the play from the perspective of the Fool. And partly because I've always liked Lear and the Fool, and have enjoyed other treatments of similar ideas, such as Christopher Moore's novel, "Fool."

Anyway, we get there early and stake out seats in the front row. The Marsh is small, so front row is right on the stage. [And by way of background, The Marsh focuses mostly on single-performer shows. In the case of this show, well-known Bay Area actor and clown Geoff Hoyle.] About mid-way through the show, a somewhat demented King wanders over to the front of the audience, trying to figure out if this Fool he perceives is real, and now he's grabbing me, assessing  whether I am what he perceives me to be. Not long after, he's sitting on my lap, seeking respite from the elements in a hovel off the blasted heath.

All told, we had three or four solid interactions. I guess he picked me out as the solid subject in the middle of the first row, rather than sitting on a grandmother or a squirming kid. That's about as close as I need to get to being cast in the play, thanks! It was fun, but it was enough.

Quick Summary

All I knew coming in was the blurb on the Marsh's website, that it was Hoyle doing Lear from the Fool's point of view. I suppose that's true, as far as it goes. The frame story is that this Fool is applying for a job, and naturally one of the interview questions is why he left his last position. That entails a bit of story-telling.

I was somewhat expecting just a condensed version of King Lear, but that's not really it. It's more like the Fool's impressions and interpretation of the elements of the play he's involved in, with some recreation/re-enactment of certain key scenes.

The play takes somewhat longer than the advertised 80 minutes. It was more like 95-100 minutes, but it wasn't dragging. I think he was just into it.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Hoyle is an amazing physical actor, as you know if you've seen him perform elsewhere. Seeing him up close is a real treat--his face is quite elastic and expressive, and some of his physical maneuvers are quite impressive. At the start of the performance, I was a little worried that it was going to be mostly clown-and-mime-and-magic stuff, but that was unfounded. He moved pretty quickly into telling his story, and that's where it gets good.

As I noted earlier, it's not a condensed staging of King Lear. Rather, Hoyle has pulled out the core story line and excised the politics and extra characters. This is the story of Lear, his daughters, and his Fool, and that's terrific. It's a little stilted when he's trying to portray a scene with the Fool and all three daughters as children; the character transitions take a bit too long, but the portrayals are clear, and they serve him well and consistently later in the story. It's clear how those three princesses grow up to be the three daughters who we know from Shakespeare's play.

But the best bits are when we get down to the foolish King and his regal Fool. The fluidity of the performance really gets going, and it plays well into his portrayal of the fluid dynamics of the relationship between the two (and by association, with the daughters). It's quite powerful and moving, and works on both thoughtful and emotional levels.

Takeaways

There is a nice little interlude before we get to the final climactic section of the show where Hoyle steps out of character and talks to the audience about King Lear and makes sure we all know the story, and he talks about his long-standing relationship with Shakespeare and King Lear in particular. I thought it worked very well, both for drawing in the audience and setting up the last scene.

Any version of Lear runs the risk of getting caught up in the overwhelming emotion, the vagaries of unforgiving nature, and the descent of a great king into madness and ruin. Hoyle makes a nod to that, and manages to avoid the traps that surround him. He manages to be thoughtful, yet emotionally evocative, but without losing himself and his audience in the theatrics. And to me, that's the triumph of the piece: he communicates an essential set of messages from the story by stripping away a lot of the distracting elements.

I have to say this reminds me of part of what I find compelling in the current "Hamlet Roulette" in repertory at Shotgun Players this year. I know I haven't written about it here yet--rest assured I will!--but that, too, strips away a lot of the side stories and unnecessary characters to cut to the heart of the story the director wants to tell. The fact that Geoff Hoyle both wrote and performs "Lear's Shadow" is impressive, especially because it works so well.

Footnote

I should mention that The Marsh is doing a fundraiser, their Renewal Campaign. You can learn more about it at their website or by emailing to renewal (at) themarsh.org.