Mermaids Presents King Lear

Mermaids’ student production of King Lear, directed by Eilidh Read, is an ambitious and moving stage production. Having seen both performances, it was clear the cast found their footing by the second night, settling into the rhythms of Shakespeare’s language and the emotional gravity of the tragedy.  

India Kolb’s Lear is at the emotional centre of the production. Kolb gave a driven and powerful performance as Lear; Kolb breathes life into every scene she is in, displaying remarkable chemistry with Cordelia and the Fool, dual roles played by Elodie Bain. The highlight of her performance is her heart-wrenching final scene, in which Lear weeps at the loss of his daughter, Cordelia. Kolb’s raw grief lands with full emotional force, through gasping for breath between lines and screaming in grief, she creates a truly tragic ending to the play. While a powerful performance, Kolb’s all-encompassing authority onstage can undermine Lear’s supposed agedness, with Lear’s walking stick inconsistently utilised throughout the play. However, this is a minor qualm in an otherwise vibrant portrayal in which Kolb is able to rise to the occasion of playing the title character.  

Figure A: King Lear mourning Cordelia while Edith mourns Edmund 

 The parallel family narrative of Glouster and his children is an outstanding aspect of this production. Glouster, Edmund, and Edith, portrayed by Buster van der Geest, Sacha Murray Threipland and Izi Prothero, respectively, form a trio whose scenes command all the attention. Van der Geest entirely embodies Glouster, delivering a grounded, humane and tragic performance. Gloucester’s blindness allows Van der Geest to have a stunning physical performance; through desperately grasping for helping hands to lead him, and walking on unsure feet whilst being led, he makes Gloucester’s suffering believable and profoundly moving. Threipland’s Edmund is wonderfully comedic, conniving and unhinged. Threipland is arrestingly present on stage, with secret scheming smiles to himself that make his manipulations all the more unsettling. He is a sensational opener to the play, striking a balance between charm and malice. And finally, Prothero’s Edith made for a profoundly sympathetic protagonist. Be it her turmoil in tricking her blind father as she reluctantly delivers lines as ‘Poor Tom’ to uphold her disguise, or her anger at her brother resulting in a dramatic confrontation as she yells in the face of her betrayer, Prothero delivers a wide emotional range as Edith. Edith’s transformation throughout the play from kind and trusting to justice-bound and resolute is handled with nuance and conviction, making the Gloucester subplot as emotionally resonant as Lear’s own tragedy.  

Bain’s Fool is another highlight, the playful swooping of her arm whilst jovially prancing around the stage allows her to masterfully distinguish herself from her role as Cordelia. In contrast, as Cordelia, Bain has an elegant yet reserved posture, often cradling her hands, which conveyed Cordelia’s kind nature. Roseanna McNaught-Davis as the eldest sister, Goneril, is poised and poisonous. Through stiff posture, sleeked back hair, and clenched fists, McNaught-Davis plays Goneril as an uptight, rigid woman. Unlike her frigid sister, Regan is fiery and condescending. Kimitris’ constantly mocking tone and ever-furrowed brows bring Regan’s brazen attitude to the forefront of her performance. Together Goneril and Regan make an excellent antagonistic duo against their father Lear. 

Figure B: King Lear cursing Goneril 

The lighting throughout the show was well directed. Opening with Edmund alone in the spotlight and closing with the Fool also alone in the spotlight allowed for a striking visual parallel. Lighting effectively enhanced the mood of the scenes, most notably with the villainous green tint in Edmund’s scenes reinforcing his antagonistic scheming presence. The production’s most immersive technical feat, however, comes during the storm in Act 3 in which the lighting, sound design and fog worked in conjunction to dynamically transport the stage into the eye of a Tempest.  

Sound design was, however, not consistently strong throughout the play. Although the storm in Act 3 shows what the production is capable of, this was not reflected in the duelling scenes in the second half. While the choreography is well executed, the absence of supporting sound results in extended stretches dominated by the sound of footsteps alone. The notable exception to this was the confrontation and resulting duel between Edith and Edmund, in which the swelling music invigorated the fight, helping to keep the audience emotionally invested in the scene. That is to say, the weakest aspect of the sound design was its absence through more of the play, as any time it was used, it greatly heightened the immersion.  

Costuming is mostly well executed, and cleverly used to track character development. In the case of Edmund his accession to power is well reflected in his increasingly refined clothing throughout the play, culminating in him wearing Lear’s cloak from Act 1. In contrast, King Lear’s descent into madness is reflected through her progressively removing her royal clothing, ending with the striking image of the King in a nightgown in the final scenes.  

Overall, due to the strengths of the performance and the thought put into the technical aspects of the play, Eilidh Read has delivered an emotionally resonant interpretation of Shakespeare text. Each of the actors have devoted themselves to their characters, and more than deserve their flowers.