Rhythm Aesthetics of King Lear Presented by the Guildhall School of Music & Drama,UK

On the evening of October 24th, 2017, King Lear was successfully presented by the Guildhall School of Music & Art (United Kingdom) at the proscenium stage in Changping Campus of the Central Academy of Drama.

As the hometown of Shakespeare, Britain has a different affection to Shakespeare’s works. Long history tradition of drama and rich cultural connotations could be experienced in this play. The director did not make many changes to the original work. He just removed the plotline that Edmund would like to seize power and the rest tried to follow the original. After the play, the director said he was more willing to express Shakespeare's text power through language. Therefore, the performers were always using lines to convey characters’ pleasure, anger, sorrow and joy. The whole theater was enveloped in an invisible force brought by sounds, which was the charm of lines.

The most prominent feature of this version of "King Lear” was that Lear was not performed by a fixed actor. Twelves performers, in turns, played Lear through the exchange of red ribbon. Character setting was beyond gender differences. It seemed to tell us that everyone may be the Lear. At the same time, Lear's mentality course resonated with that of different living creatures on the stage. The character was no longer explained by a fixed person. Different actors used their own characteristics to represent Lear's spiritual world from soberness to breakdown. In addition, the waiting performers would not hide in an area that the audience could not see. In the entire performance, the characters’ exchange and conversion were completed on stage. That was a breakthrough for the traditional way of acting. The stage was no just longer a place to be watched. There would be a new performance relationship between the audience and performers on the stage, which was more like what happens in the rehearsal room. This design didn’t show a story of a simple father and his daughters. It was more like a politics contest. The characters in such a story were destined to attract tremendous attention. Perhaps, they could make their own choices, but sometimes, they were forced to do something involuntarily.

The overall style of the play presented a sad atmosphere. The performers’ costumes in black and white suggested that it was like an ongoing funeral. It seemed the play was a tragedy from the very beginning. As for the stage setting, simple decoration and a painting hanging in the middle of stage were used. The painting colored in black and white fitted into the whole stage style. But its gentle inking brought the stage a sense of mystery.