King Lear REVIEW

King Lear By William Shakespeare Directed by Marion Potts Presented by Queensland Theatre Company & Bell Shakespeare Company QPAC, Brisbane It was a long and wavering 3 hours and 15 minutes at Queensland Theatre Company’s opening night of King Lear. There were high points of stirring passion and low points of drawn-out dialogue. The only times I really seem to “get” Shakespeare is when it’s the Leonardo DiCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet, or any other modernised adaptation like La Boite’s recent huge success, Hamlet. Even then I am sometimes lost in the text. So, when I see a powerful, and mostly traditional, rendition of King Lear, I am overwhelmed by the intense concentration it requires and the long-winded conversations that I just can’t follow. Fortunately, I understood the general gist of things thanks to brilliant actors who can intonate the language conveying the sentiment because they understand it thoroughly, as apposed to just reading the text aloud... By Kellie Scott. To read the full review, please visit http://www.brisbanecritiques.com