Honest Fishmongers Make Shakespeare Approachable

What a refreshing and rambunctious production of King Lear! I have very strong opinions about how Shakespeare should be performed and this piece checked all of my boxes.

Shakespeare should be accessible. And there’s nothing more accessible than being greeted and ushered to your seats by the full cast. Chatty and charming, they entertained us and broke down some personal space bubble barriers before launching into the performance proper.

The Havana is an intimate space at the best of times and King Lear is a big play. The stage was set up corridor-style to double as “court” and “outdoors”. Having relaxed the audience and gotten us accustomed to the small space, the actors were free to weave pathways through our seats, lay an unexpected hand on a shoulder mid-monologue, grasp our hands in supplication or sit back and lean against our knees. It certainly added a feeling of real danger during the fight scenes. It was beautifully handled.

The only problem was, they forgot to callibrate again after intermission. We were thrown straight back into the heart of a very dark play and it took us a while to adjust to such a gloomy and melodramatic world. It was particularly difficult for two fidgety audience members sitting directly opposite me. (A note to other audience members: You're not in a movie theatre. If you’re bored, zone out, leave, go have a drink, but don’t ruin it for the rest of us, ok? Because we can see you and so can the actors.)

There were some less than conventional casting choices in this production. Some I felt really worked and some were a little hit and miss, but they were all interesting or justifiable. For example, it took me a long time to get used to Julie McIsaac as Edgar. I was never 100% sold on her interpretation of Poor Tom, but her Edgar was noble. She wore the innocence and compassion well. I liked it more than any other Edgar I've seen. Historically, I prefer Tom. Edgar has always seemed a bit wet behind the ears. It was pleasant to see my preference switched.

The sons of Gloucester are a tough pair to portray, they're so polar. Evan Frayne's Edmund was very believeable as a human being, but not as a kinslaying, conniving bastard. He seemed uncomfortable with his roughishness. Usually I’m wishing actors would tone Edmund down a little, but this actor could have done with a little more hammy villian. The Honest Fishmongers put on a more slapstick interpretation of the script than most, he could have gone there.

Cordelia is the other really tricky character in this play, she always feels more like a plot device than an actual character. Katherine Gauthier’s performance in the opening scene felt a little too light or frivilous; too warm given the circumstances. But she really came through in the end, which is the builk of Cordelia's stage time anyway. She was pure, earnest and strong. Very moving.

I was similarly unsure about Simon Webb's Lear. He started out pretty fickle and feeble and I wasn’t sure if he was playing all his cards too early. But  his character journey was anything but flat. He wasn’t a sympathetic or a cuddly Lear. Arrogant, yes, but not magestic. But then, the character isn’t pleasant. He’s a cantankerous, selfish old man. His redemption only comes right near the end. And I was absolutely swept up in the final reunion scene between Gauthier and Webb.

Sebastian Kroon's Fool was another interesting choice. I liked it. He lost the stutter in act 2 and he fell apart in the storm rather inexplicably for someone who has lived such a hard life, but he worked. And it was a Fool I’d never seen before.

Gloucester (Anthony F. Ingram) and Kent (David Bloom) are my two favourite characters in this play and they both were played beautfully. The whole cast did a great job. Goneril (Renee Bucciarelli) and Regan (Emma Slipp) could have been a little less disney villain, but they were both elegant and believeable. Oswald (Chris Cochrane) was suitably ingratiating, Joel Stephanson as Albany and Ashley O'Connell as Cornwall were both solid, sensible if a little henpecked and the ensemble work tied it all together and kept the energy flowing between the copious scene changes.

The costume style enhanced the "poor travelling players" feel, but it didn't feel distracting, it was perfect. The king of France was quite obviously wearing a robe with spools of fabric tacked on, but it added to the charm of the small space and energetic performances. More importantly, the costumes were consistent and flexible, allowing for quick but dramatic character changes.

This is definitely the lightest Lear I’ve ever seen. Necessarily so, with the level of audence proximity. People laugh when they’re uncomfortable and instead of ignoring or suppressing that, it was capitalized on. Even in more serious moments. Sometimes that annoyed me, I tend to take things quite seriously, but I don’t think it would have worked any other way.

I want to say a really well done to this cast and crew. It's not the very best Lear I’ve ever seen, but it's the best I’ve seen in Vancouver. King Lear is a powerful, ugly and stirring story. Well done to the Honest Fishmongers for breaking down that 4th wall, reaching over and bringing us into their world.