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Return of the king
by Natasha Hay
One of the great classical actors of our time, our dear Gandalf, Sir Ian McKellen rolled into town and worked his theatrical wizardry. And what a thrill it was to get to see not only the sold-out King Lear but also The Seagull; a heavyweight double bill directed by Trevor Nunn for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
My quibble is with the venue – Auckland's ASB Theatre in the Aotea Centre – and its dodgy acoustics. Naturally being RSC-trained, most of the actors projected adequately, and a rhetorical style certainly doesn't jar with Shakespeare, but The Seagull, a more intimate chamber work, was somewhat handicapped by the cavernous auditorium if you were in the cheap seats. A pity, since this was the more satisfying and beautifully staged production.
Lear opens operatically with thunderous trumpets and organ music; there's much meaningless ceremony in this Ruritanian kingdom, with the whole court prostrate before the golden-robed king, who turns his abdication into a display of royal weakness playing silly, dangerous love-games with his daughters. Christopher Oram's lovely design evokes a 19th-century curved theatrical, balconied wall with plush red drapes, some of which later tumble down to reveal wooden slates as Lear's world falls apart and war destroys the land.
McKellen's Lear is technically impeccable; full of unpredictable shifts – that includes, perfectly logically, stripping off during the storm – and surprising, thoughtful line-readings. His progression through petulant rage to bewildered anxiety and senility generates deep pity. But rather than a truly harrowing tragic figure pushed to the limits, this frail, despairing king is less consistently moving. His tragedy is more a painful awareness of his unraveling mind: "I shall go mad," he tells the Fool (Sylvester McCoy as a rather annoying spoon-playing joker). And in an interesting directorial innovation, Nunn has the Fool hanged onstage at the end of the first half.
There is solid support from William Gaunt's Gloucester (including an affecting scene on the heath where Lear fondly cradles him), Julian Harries as Albany and Jonathan Hyde's Kent, all on the side of goodness.
And the hard hearts: Lear's villainous daughters, in their gorgeous silken gowns, Goneril (Frances Barber) and Regan (Monica Dolan), are suitably shrill and nasty. But Romola Garai's unusually headstrong Cordelia – with a piercing, harsh voice that rather negates Lear's "soft, gentle and low" description – takes some adjusting to. As does Philip Winchester's swaggering, glamorous Edmund, not the usual delivery of evil but nevertheless effective. His final fight scene between him and Edgar (Ben Meyjes) is terrific.
This is a swiftly paced, lucid and very assured production; and it's only to be expected that McKellen dominates, fully deserving his ovation.
The Seagull, though, is ensemble work at its finest. It's amazing that Anton Chekhov's play about self-absorbed pre-revolution Russians swanning around with too much time on their hands and all suffering from unrequited love still resonates. It's all to do with soul and subtext.
There is a fine line between the comedy and the tragic undertow in Chekhov, and Nunn nails the humour, as well as the melancholy, with perfectly nuanced, finely detailed characterisations. He even gets away with deliberate melodrama, such as showing onstage Konstantin's botched suicide in the first act.
As the central character Nina, here Romola Garai really takes wing. Somehow she gets away with being irritatingly intense, favouring a high-pitched tone, her neck craning forward birdlike, and gesturing emphatically to make the melodramatic failure of Nina's life deeply affecting, as she journeys from impassioned actress, adored by the needy and obsessive wannabe writer Konstantin (an excellent Richard Goulding) to her reckless and tragic passion for sexy-but-shallow celebrity writer Trigorin (Gerald Kyd).
Frances Barber brilliantly captures the imperious vanity of Arkadina, Konstantin's famous ageing-actress mother and Trigorin's clingy lover, still predatory as she flirts outrageously with past paramours. The standout is Monica Dolan as "I'm in mourning for my life" Masha, who journeys from hopeless unrequited love to hopeless unhappy marriage, while hilariously tossing back vodka and snorting snuff. And what a gleeful and exquisitely funny performance by McKellen, this time as the elderly, woolly-headed Sorin, with a genial humour that lights up Oram's handsome lakeside stage, with its sad silver birches.
It's a wonderfully moving and generous production, with some of the best ensemble acting we've had the privilege of seeing.
KING LEAR and THE SEAGULL; RSC, Aotea Centre, Auckland.
