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King Lear

Evelyn Krape’s Lear returns to fortyfivedownstairs
Melbourne Shakespeare Company
by
ABR Arts 02 August 2021

King Lear

Evelyn Krape’s Lear returns to fortyfivedownstairs
Melbourne Shakespeare Company
by
ABR Arts 02 August 2021
Evelyn Krape as King Lear in Melbourne Shakespeare Company’s production of King Lear (photograph by Chelsea Neate)
Evelyn Krape as King Lear in Melbourne Shakespeare Company’s production of King Lear (photograph by Chelsea Neate)

A solid wooden desk at centre stage is bracketed by two more placed behind it. A whiteboard is off to one side, and a pile of broken office chairs rises on a tiered platform, suggesting a throne. The rollers from five swivel chairs hang threateningly over the actors’ heads. As the audience is seated, actors in dour business suits enter and exit, checking papers with a sense of subdued activity as the ethereal strings, pads, and pizzicato melodies of Ben Keene’s sound design float through the space. Someone Blu-Tacks a pie chart split into three on the whiteboard, foreshadowing the play’s famous conceit. These pre-show touches promise an anachronistic corporate world with overtones of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and the Time Variance Authority from Marvel’s recent Loki.

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