King Lear Successfully Performed by Institute of Theatre Arts - GITIS, Russia

On the afternoon of October 25th, 2017, the last performance of “King Lear” of WTEA Festival was performed by Russian Institute of Theatre Arts - GITIS, Russia, at the proscenium stage in Changping Campus of the Central Academy of Drama. This play always made people cry when the audience wanted to laugh. A tragedy was presented in a humorous and comedic way.

During the performance, the symbol of royal power was replaced by a wheelchair.The people around the royal power were all handicapped, such as linked body of Regan and Gornery, crippled Cordelia, Kent with only one hand as well as disabled King Lear who would never stand up from the wheelchair. However, when they stayed far away from royal power, their fragmentary bodies were restored to normal again. Cordelia was no longer crippled and Kent would re-stretch out his hand from his clothes.

Audiences were amused by the play in a fanciful way. However, if the absurdity element was excluded aside the play, the imperfection with invalidism directly demonstrated human dissimilation by royal power. Human’s pursuit of power is an eternal and permanent issue. When a person has a choice of power, family, friendship and even humanity shall give way for it. And this morbid pursuit of power in the play exactly coincides with Shakespeare's original intention of creating King Lear. What the audience could feel was not only the tragic quality because of Lear’s impulsion but alsoa mockery of power over people when King Lear, who had lost everything, lay naked on the stage. When Lear was no longer camouflaged by power, he was able to stand on the stage and tell everything like a man. As the script said,“You gave everything you had to others, but only the name was born with you.” At that moment, only the name and body belonged to King Lear. In fact, characters’ arrangement by Russian Institute of Theatre Arts - GITIS, was also a tribute to Shakespeare. When the audience asked the director's choice of actors to play Lear's three daughters, the director explained that only men could perform on stage in Shakespeare's time.

The biggest feature in the play of King Lear, performed by Russian Institute of Theatre Arts - GITIS, Russia, was the re-interpretation of King of France and the Fool. The Fool was both a performer and an outsider. He not only mocked Lear on the stage but also gave a synopsis to the audience. Therefore, the audience shall think over what happened on the stage without occurring empathy. The character of the King of France, free of King Lear's power struggle, eventually sit on Lear’s wheelchair and became the second "King Lear". This setting was undoubtedly a bold innovation of the original role. As the director said, the competition on the power will last endless.The departure of a tyrant means there would exist another tyrant.