Lear & His Daughters has been directed as a performance targeted for senior high school students.  It has been edited to 50 mins to fit school class timetabling and designed without lights for a fast get in and get out time.

In 1995 McGregor studied King Lear for one year for her Masters degree with Dr Mark Houlahan at the University of Waikato and wrote her major paper on Peter Brook’s film King Lear with its Brechtian montage and Beckettian sparesness. Jan Kott’s perceptive linking of Lear and Beckett’s Endgame offered inspiration in terms of the claustrophobic nature of Lear’s relationships.  Dr Houlahan justified the in depth study because he believes that it is impossible to solve the riddles of this apocalyptic play – and the end of the world is a relevant theme for our environmentally threatened world today.

A strong image that the director wanted to create on stage was that of Lear’s 100 men, or soldiers, who accompany him on his travels from daughter to daughter (and Johnson found the perfect solution with cardboard cut-outs).  What kind of house / castle would his daughter need to house and feed 101 men?  And in contemporary times, how would his daughter feel with her father and his gang partying every night in the lounge, while she and her family were trying to sleep??  And get up in the morning for work?

Another theme was (in a contemporary context) the relationship between father and daughter as father becomes aged and forgetful and needs to either live with her or be placed into an old peoples’ home.

The director wanted the daughters to be fully developed characters in their own rights – with strong vocal and physical qualities to distinguish between each of them, especially between Goneril and Regan.  She worked with the actress on the psychologies of the characters, the pecking order of the family, eldest, middle and youngest, and the animal imagery that is prevalent in the text.  Kirkman has excelled in creating believable characters for all four of her characters, characters who allow us to see a little into their hearts. 

The Fool of course is the one who tells the truth, it is not very wise to tell the truth, which Cordelia does, making her a fool in her own right.  The Fool sings much of his text – original music composed by Suzy Hawes – is acrobatic, and costumed as Pierrot – the sad clown.  The Fool’s character changes in mood from scene to scene complementing Lear’s downward spiral until Lear and Shadow converge and the Fool is no longer present.

Lear is a mammoth role, and Johnson has worked hard to traverse the range of emotions, moods and swings in character, in his fall from noble to pauper, manhood to senility, pride to madness.  "Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts" –  from his own hard heartedness to a state of being able to love and beg forgiveness. 

Rehearsals involved as much improvisation as time permitted, to work in a collaborative manner between director and actors, to find through experimentation deep and innovative performance forms. 

In one scene the movement score was developed separately from the text, the physical action depicting a scene between Regan and Gloucester (who has been cut from the performance).  This is a dramaturgical method of directing that permits layers of meaning to filter through the actors’ performances from their differing physical and vocal scores.  It is a method that requires a long rehearsal process, and as this was not available for this performance, is only utilised on one scene. 

The costumes (and props) are designed as semiotic ‘signs’ rather than as realistic copies located in a specific historical time frame.  The colour coding of the daughters’ costumes with the use of the reversible cloak – black for Goneril, red for Regan and white underneath for Cordelia, permits the actress to make very fast transitions between characters, but at the same time gives clear signs to the audience as to who she is playing, which is established clearly in the first scene.

Costumes and props are based around ‘found’ objects, or easily accessible objects, to encourage students to use their imaginations to create performance work of their own without needing a budget.  Newspaper has been utilised (influenced by the paper costumes sometimes used in Japanese Butoh, and the paper cut out figures of Hans Christian Andersen – who was renowned for his children’s storytelling and paper cut-outs). 

The director has linked the beginning and ending of the play with the music Over the Rainbow – played on clarinet by Cordelia – who plays over Lear’s speech, "No, no, no, no.  Come let’s away to prison … so we’ll live, and pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies … " as he fantasises that the dreams he dares to dream might really come true.  

Comments from schools: 

WELLINGTON COLLEGE

This week we were fortunate to be able to stage a performance of an excerpt from King Lear, by the Kore Theatre troupe, at Wellington College. This two-person performance completely held the audience, which is no mean feat at 9.00am, and when the audience is 100 Year 13 boys.

The performance was moving, physical and very fast-paced, taking the audience through a wide range of emotions and brilliantly including humour and pathos. Ralph Johnson portrayed a Lear with whom the students empathized – a couple of them commented that they were not expecting this reaction to the foolish old man – and all were very impressed with Liz Kirkman’s skill and energy in playing Regan, Goneril, Cordelia and the Fool. The audience loved the way she used her musical skills, playing the clarinet, and her acrobatic skills. They also enjoyed the way her simple use of changing items of costume emphasized symbolic aspects of the characters she was playing.

Comments from the boys included:
‘It made the relationship between Lear and each of his three daughters very clear and I am now able to visualize it as well as understand it."

"The performance differentiated Regan and Goneril’s characters in a way that reading the play had not done."

"I now understand why some critics think that Cordelia and the Fool are one and the same character."

"It looked cool with the simple set using colour symbolically and gave me ideas for staging."

"The funny bits were a surprise and a bonus."

As I commented to the actors, a Wellington College audience does not ‘suffer fools’ and we become painfully aware if the students are not enjoying and appreciating a performance. But this most certainly did not happen. The boys were genuinely interested and drawn into the performance. We would have no hesitation in having Kore Theatre back to Wellington College.

Yours sincerely

Kirsty Hazledine
Cultural Director

TAURAROA AREA SCHOOL

Hi there, Just a quick note to thank you for making the effort to come all the way out here and for your performance yesterday. It was very enjoyable and I have had lots of positive feedback this morning from the students. They were impressed with the way one person could play different characters using few props. Roll on live performances any day. Once again thanks.

Staff and students of Tauraroa Area School
Maungakaramea (20mins out of Whangarei)

WOODFORD HOUSE

I am writing to report on the Lear performance earlier in the week. We were very impressed. The energy and focus of the actors held the girls. One student described it as ‘invigorating’. The girls were particularly taken with the imaginative use of ‘found’ objects to enhance the story-telling. Let us know when you are through again!
Thank-you.
Josephine Carpenter
Woodford House
Havelock North 

Actors:
Ralph Johnson:  Lear
Liz Kirkman   :  Fool, Cordelia, Regan, Goneril

Music:  Suzy Hawes

Design: 
Costume, set, props:  Lilicherie McGregor
Movement & space:  Lilicherie McGregor

Email: theatrekore@hotmail.com