KING LEAR by William Shakespeare (Watershed Shakespeare Festival Collective). At Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson). Runs to December 6. $30. 416-504-7529. See listings. Rating: NN
First the good news. Veteran Canadian actor David Fox (The Farm Show, The Drawer Boy) brings intelligence, a goofy yet sinister charm and real tenderness to the title role of King Lear, the Mount Everest of parts for older actors. And Hume Baugh makes an excellent Fool, all gruff pronouncements and self-loathing, a tragic, doomed figure from the moment he steps onstage.
They’re the two strongest reasons to see this semi-professional production, which often feels longer than its three and a half hours.
Director Rod Carley has set the action in 1837 Upper Canada, but he’s done little with this beyond letting his actors sport spanking-new-looking red or blue coats to tell you where their allegiances lie as the plot, about a divided family and kingdom, plays out.
The Theatre Passe Muraille mainspace lends intimacy to the drama, but that’s ruined by shouty acting, bad Irish accents (whenever characters don disguises, for some reason they sound like they’re from Dublin) and distracting, overly loud music and thunder effects.
This is a production where villainy is signalled by arched eyebrows. Gloucester’s Dover scene is so badly staged it elicits unintentional giggles.
I won’t mention the other actors, many of them recent graduates of North Bay’s Canadore College. Some show potential, but others seem horribly undertrained.
In the end this feels like a master class in which students learn by watching one of our finest actors do his thing. Let’s hope they get something out of it.
