THEATRE / King Lear - Lilian Baylis

In their determination to speak each line - sometimes each syllable - of King Lear with pregnant emphasis, Compass Theatre divest the play of emotional meaning. From the start, Lear is a capricious baby, his elder daughters vicious bitches; the extremes of feeling reached in the first scene leave the characters no space to develop. This is particularly true of Nick Chadwin's Lear, who oscillates between whining selfishness and congested, spluttering rage. The blur of his lines ensures that any pity or awe Lear might inspire is smothered by the urge to give this overgrown brat a good slapping. The booming Gloucester similarly fails to evoke sympathy.

Whereas this company's Hamlet made no concession to the necessities of doubling roles, here they seem sporadically self-conscious about it. Sometimes they change character on stage, daring the audience with a hard stare to dispute the theatrical reality. At other times, they canter breathlessly offstage before hurriedly re-entering as someone else. The costumes, too, are inconsistent: torn evening wear and smudged underwear, a parody of refugee or dosser garb so inappropriate it further devalues the production.

There are two stirring moments, when Lear's three daughters rattle huge sheets of metal hanging at the back of the stage to represent the storm and the battle. But the rousing volume of these interludes simply supplies a counterfeit sense of theatrical vigour so obviously wanting elsewhere.