King Lear in Klata's interpretation dazzles with its monumental sets and the costumes by Justyna Łagowska, it pulls you in and seduces you with music by James Leyland Kirby, and delights you (…) with the witty and precise choreography by Maćko Prusak. The stage is utterly ruled by Jerzy Grałek's Lear, struggling with his own departure, incapacity, pitifully grasping at illusions, sliding into madness, which is hypnotic in the scene where he meets Edgar (Krzysztof Zawadzki) and passes judgment on his wayward daughters. “Jaśmina Polak is quite memorable – her fool is an outpost of authenticity in a world of cynicism and falsehood,” wrote Michał Centkowski in dwutygodnik.com. “The camera is forever active on stage. The digitally processed image is projected on the rear wall of the stage. Locked in a glass cell and tumbling into madness, Lear looks upward. What is driving him on? A longing for forgiveness? The solitude and despair of a man at his wits' end? Or perhaps a bit of everything?”
Performance with English subtitles.
King Lear directed by Jan Klata at the National Stary Theatre in Kraków is part of the Shakespeare Lives programme.
30, 31 January and 2, 3 February 2016 at the National Stary Theatre in Kraków (Large Stage).