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Barbara & the King |
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"People have asked why I wanted to do Lear again," said Barbara Gaines, who first directed King Lear eight years ago. The artistic director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater was welcoming 200 or so donors to an open rehearsal of her 2001 Lear, staged this winter at the CST lakefront complex. Looking more like a PTA president than Shakespeare impresario—in bulky green sweater and black pants —she quickly managed to warm up the steeply raked Lear stage, constructed to look stone-cold. The first time she presented the tragedy, Gaines recalled, her good friend, set designer Michael Merritt, had just died of cancer. "It was so shocking to have such a young man go so soon, and there were some things that happen to Lear, emotionally, that were things all of us learned while Michael was dying. "But eight years have gone by, and life changes," she said. "And my feelings about Lear have changed significantly since then. I thought it was a great tragedy eight years ago. I wasn't sure there were any shafts of light. But I don't feel that way anymore. What I've learned is that there are worse things than dying. What did Woody Allen say? 'There are a lot worse things than death—like spending the evening with your insurance broker.' "I no longer think Lear is a tragedy because of what I've learned, and I think Lear learns the same thing. He starts out as a man hungry for power. He is a man who has lived his entire life acquiring land, possessions, people around him—a man who in large part doesn't know himself and certainly doesn't know his children." But late in the play, she added, "at 80-something years old, he realizes that the most important thing in life is to be in the room with someone you love dearly and that all the stuff he had in his life before doesn't amount to a hill of beans when faced with looking into his daughter Cordelia's eyes. "And I think any time you can come to that kind of personal discovery and finally focus on the joy and miracle of love, that's OK with me." In the open rehearsal, Gaines led three actors through four run-throughs of Scene 5 in Act 1, in which the Fool (Scott Parkinson) attempts to cheer a distraught Lear (Greg Vinkler). The exercise was both enlightening and funny. Gaines had Vinkler react with more amusement to the Fool's jokes, then later reminded both actors how much the fool loves Lear. By the fourth time through, the scene was played with deep poignancy. The director was pleased. After the applause died down, she sat cross-legged on the stage with her Lear and her Fool and leaned over to kiss both actors. She was clearly in the room with those she loved. - A.T.
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