Adelaide Festival. Malthouse Theatre. Her Majesty's Theatre. 5 Mar 2014
Tom E. Lewis became mainstream since playing the eponymous role in The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith in 1978. Recently, he collated the issues of land, entitlement and family seen in King Lear with his experience of the same in the Aboriginal community. Such a conversation with co-creator and director Michael Kantor has resulted in this compelling adaptation of King Lear to Aboriginal conditions.
This production is a rough diamond. Thankfully shrunk to an hour-forty, Shakespeare's script is adapted in word, voice, intonation and even language to the red dust of Central Australia. The cast effortlessly switch from Shakespeare's verse, native languages and the colloquial Kriol.
An elder with a crown divides the mineral-rich land amongst his daughters on the bonnet of an enormous piece of rusting mining machinery that dominates the action whilst doubling as the front porch of a number of dwellings deftly represented in screen projections. The valuable land is an attractive prize to Goneril and Regan, and the role of the bastard mischief-maker Edmund in this rendition is more focused on his intercourse with the daughters than on bedeviling poor Gloucester and the hapless Edgar.
Tom E. Lewis was a sweaty and intense Lear, an old showman. Jimi Bani was a stand-out Edmund. His large frame negotiated the stage with grace and his oration was spot-on. The three daughters have more individuated lives than in the Bard's Lear, grounding them in realism. We don't see that much of Cordelia, but Jada Alberts (Regan) and Natasha Wanganeen (Goneril) do a superb portrait of what the Americans call trailer trash with verisimilitude. A live on-stage trio ably set the mood with Aboriginal and standard chords thanks to music director John Rodgers.
Great in concept, strong in script, convincing in production but a little underdone in ensemble performance.
David Grybowski
When: 5 to 8 Mar
Where: Malthouse Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
