Le Roi Lear (King Lear)

(This is the promo poster for King Lear)

Yesterday, I dragged Dawn to see King Lear (the Shakesperian tragedy) completely translated in French. Needless to say, she was dragged and did not go willingly but I convinced her by saying that even if you don't understand everything, it will be worth it to see a classic play in French and what about the spectacle? I always think that even if a show is bad, sometimes the spectacle of it will reward you.

I understood about 60% of what was going on while Dawn seemed to understand nothing, unfortunately. I truly went to see the spectacle and enjoy some French theatre, even if I understood nothing. I did not know King Lear before I saw it and did a quick synopsis read of the show right before we went so my retention of said synopsis was poor at best. What I did understand was at least clear that this was a tragedy and everyone died at the end. :)

What I really enjoyed was seeing the stage, theatre, lights, sounds, costumes and special effects. At least I got my money's worth. Originally, the show was supposed to cost about $15 for students. While we were in line to get tickets, this random man just handed me a ticket for the show. It was a really discounted $7 ticket. I was like, ok, great! Thanks but we need 2. So when we got to the box office, I showed the woman the ticket I had just received and said we needed another. Ok, $7, she said! Yay! So both Dawn and I saw the show for the split cost of $3.50. It turns out that the ticket the man gave us was for a huge group of high school students and apparently, one of the kids didn't show so he just gave me the ticket for free. Due to assigned seats, Dawn and I had assumed we wouldn't be able to sit together. However, upon entry to the large 400+ seat capacity theatre, we noticed that the last 2 rows weren't really occupied. So we just sat in the back and hoped no one asked for our tickets.

I did really enjoy just the spectacle of the show. It was a raked stage that was high in the back and low in the front and it jutted out from the deck itself. It was a metal grid which was covered by some crappily painted cloth for the first scene. The actors from scene 1 removed the cloth and then the metal grid stage was revealed. The actors really used the space well by running through the house which was set up with stadium-style seating as well as the exits right off stage and the exits upstage. Oh, the stage had a trap door which is always awesome to see!

There were really 2 great parts of the show. The first part was when a man came out and covered himself with green body paint and then threw feathers all over himself. He became known as "chicken man" to me! I loved him. I didn't really understand what he was there for but he did at least entertain me.

The second really great part of the show was when they had a thunder and lightning sequence on stage and REAL water fell from the stage. The actors got all wet and it was very convincing. The sound was amazing and they projected funny raindrops and swirling clouds on the metal grid stage. I was very impressed.

In all, I wished I had understood it better but at least I understood that everyone was dying which is all you really need to know about a Shakesperian tragedy.

British word lesson of the day: Bonnet = hood of a car In a sentence: I couldn't get my bonnet closed by myself so I had to ask my neighbor for help. It was very embarrassing.