King Kamehameha Day (Hawaii)
2008-06-11 @ 11:49 p.m.

I just got back from the first night of The King Lear Project, which was amazing, and it's a shame nobody wanted to come with me because I'm absolutely certain some of my friends would have loved it. Let me begin, however, with some observations on the experience of going to the theatre alone. I've discovered I am grievously unaccustomed to the company of me, myself and I. Partly because I don't typically attend performances alone, partly because I felt awkward in the setting. The latter, I suspect, requires further clarification. To borrow the Gossip Girl analogy I tossed out to Vaish in our chat, I felt like a Brooklynite who wandered into the Upper East Side by accident. Why the sense of being an interloper, you might well wonder. Simply because, technically speaking, I am. At least until I start earning my own money. I wasn't born into the sort of wealth and privilege that I'm sure not a few of my fellow theatregoers enjoy as a matter of fact. There's no shame in not being fabulously rich and well-connected, but there's nothing quite like being surrounded by people schmoozing that makes you want to be one of their own, however shallowly that aspiration may be interpreted. Yet this desire to fit in conflicts with a personal rejection of blind conformation to tidy social categories, this being the essential contradiction that fuels my life. Put simply, I want in, but on my own terms. Having company takes the edge of the sense of alienation, as said company is typically not part of such rarefied circles either. That and I'm too old to be pretending I'm just another poor student attending a play because it's part of the curriculum.

After that lengthy digression, here's what I have to say about Lear Enters. The play is structured as a series of auditions for the part of King Lear, which may be interpreted by the auditioning actor in three ways, namely, King Lear as god, madman or everyman. As the audience, we of course expect to see each actor perform a different interpretation. What made things just that little bit more interesting, for me anyway, was the explanation given in the third segment that the three actors had conferred before the auditions and decided to perform the Lear that best suited their personalities, to provide Kaylene Tan, the director, with maximum variety. This choreographed arrangement made the triple presentation of King Lear a conscious choice within and without the play, a sign of the fourth wall being subtly broken.

The scene chosen for the audition was from the opening of the play, beginning with Lear's line, "Meantime we shall express our darker purpose." In the first audition, Remesh Panicker played Lear as god, which was electrifying. For his entrance, he had everyone pronate themselves, which was funny, but also scary because of the iron sense of control radiating from his Lear. Tan Kheng Hua's Goneril and Janice Koh's Regan were practically grovelling when they delivered their professions of love. I didn't quite like Shu An Oon's Cordelia in this segment, as her delivery felt artificially stiff, as if she were rigid with terror. Then again, maybe that was the point? Crispian Chan's Fool had a markedly sensual bond with Lear, which led Remesh to remark in jest that they were "gay lovers". Here the Fool was to be seen as an extension of Lear himself, akin to a physical manifestation of the god-king's persona. Brendon Fernandez as the loyal Kent conveyed exactly that quality in this segment.

K. Rajagopal then gave us Lear as madman, which was first and foremost, a hilarious performance, with a touch of an Indian accent, I might add. He pranced in half-naked, with the rest of his royal court dancing and whirling like a troop of monkeys. (All this after having infuriated set designer, James Page, with his demands to change the set.) Goneril was hysterical in her declaration, with Regan displaying a more calculated restraint compared to Goneril's primal outpouring. Cordelia was very good in this segment, her gravity of demeanour set in contrast with Lear's feral caprice. The Fool was also interesting in this segment, as throughout the scene, he grasped a rope that was restraining Lear, as if the king were a wild beast that had to be held in check. In this scene, Kent functioned as a foil for Cordelia, as the two characters who refuse to pander to Lear's madness.

Finally, Gerald Chew presented Lear as everyman. This segment had a contemporary setting, reminiscent of a boardroom meeting, which was refreshing but also made some of the more archaic language a tad jarring. Still, while his Lear was admirably affable as the patriarch, I personally find this to be the least convincing interpretation of Lear, in terms of the idea of course, not the acting. Goneril and Regan could have stepped out of a family drama where the family fortune was at stake, and Cordelia was interesting as the daughter who is not so much devoted as dismissively confident of securing her father's favour regardless of her actions. This was also the only segment where when told to disappear from her father's sight, she obeyed, stalking off in a manner that reinforced the feeling of this being a family drama serial. The Fool was genuinely one here, scrambling in after the audition scene had begun and tripping over a chair whilst trying to make his way to his seat, all of which I'm sure was deliberately done to emphasise the more relaxed style of this segment's contemporary rendition. Kent came across as a personal assistant, handing a MacBook to Lear that presumably contained a map of his dominion.

At one point, Paul Rae, as the producer, traced the evolution of the three Lear archetypes and their relation to power. We begin with the omnipotence of a god, supreme power and all that jazz. Think founder of dynasties throughout the ages. Then their degenerate progeny come to the fore as madmen, corrupted and fallen from their former heights. Ultimately, the idea of divinity dies, to be replaced by the lowest common denominator, the everyman that can appeal so broadly precisely because he is everyone and yet no one. (Of course, this all sounded much better coming from Paul, but I didn't have time to whip out my handphone to type out his lines.) Lear as god-king, like Kaylene pointed out, has the power of an old cliché. The madman-king, on the other hand, has method to his madness and isn't simple one-dimensional in his folly. As for the everyman-king, Paul initially expressed the opinion that this archetype would work best for Kaylene's production, being inherently appealing to the audience. Yet after watching Gerald's performance, he reversed his judgement, stating that the trouble with the everyman is that the moment he is brought onto stage, he disappears, unable to convey that sort of regal quality we demand of our royalty. Generally, Paul's lines were the most thought-provoking, sounding right at home in the critical texts that inspired this trilogy.

The performance was further enriched by subtle devices. An example would be the projection of live footage onto a screen at the back of the stage. Whenever the actor was performing as Lear, the camera would track him, literally providing a different perspective of his acting. This gave the impression of watching a televised performance, which in turn meshed with the reality television effect of having each actor being quizzed by Kaylene on the motivation behind his rendition of Lear, as well as the off-stage footage of the actors in their dressing rooms, exposing them to scrutiny in their private moments. After each actor had left, the camera would then focus on Paul, seated in the middle of the audience, to allow him to deliver his opinion of their version of Lear, much like the judging we see happening on shows like American Idol.

What intrigued me the most about tonight's play, however, was the manner in which the fourth wall was systematically breached, right from the beginning, in a manner akin to the Drost effect writ large. The opening tableau gave us a cameraman, pointing his camera squarely at the audience. This carried on long enough to cause some unease, before Kaylene yelled "Cut!" and we saw the stage being set for the upcoming auditions. The lines between actors and audience were further blurred because tonight, the cast was really playing themselves, playing other people. Everyone was addressed by their actual names, and when not in character as part of the King Lear scene, they interacted as they would if this scene were happening in real life instead of onstage, bringing their real-life social relationships into the mix. Basically, it turned the entire audience into voyeurs. Also worth noting was how people like James and Lu Huen, the stage manager, and even the stagehands, functioned in the same roles for the production as well as the audition within the production. A particularly noteworthy moment was after Remesh's audition, when Kaylene strode to the centre, the house lights dimmed, leaving a spotlight on her, and she posed a question about the quality of his audition. She pointed her flashlight at the audience, slowly making an arc, as if she expected someone to answer. I half-thought that someone actually might, so it was a pleasant shock when Paul started speaking, his image projected onscreen, and the audience discovered that one of the cast had been hiding amongst us in plain sight. A humorous moment also occurred during Gerald's audition, when Paul suddenly called out "Freeze!" and everyone onstage complied, allowing him to snap a shot that looked like a vague parody of da Vinci's The Last Supper. After a few seconds, he finally called out "Unfreeze!" and the audition proceeded. This interference from offstage again blurred the boundaries between performer and viewer.

The final point I'd like to highlight about tonight's production is the use of recursion to structure the whole performance. Not only did each audition take place with roughly the same sequence of events occurring (entrace of actor, briefing by Kaylene and her assistant, Elizabeth Tan, planning with cast and crew, audition, interview by Kaylene, verdict by Paul), there was also what I guess qualifies as a running gag. Whenever it came to briefing the actor, Kaylene would call out for Lu, who would then pop out from backstage in a hurry. Another point of similarity was how during the interview, the actor was interrupted in his explanation by one of the women playing Lear's daughters, who would offer a point that shed light on how that actor's choice to play Lear in a certain way affected the way that she in turn played her character. This happened with Kheng Hua for Remesh, Janice for Rajagopal, and in a twist in the third segment, Elizabeth for Gerald. Shu An would have spoken, but her raised hand was ignored, and Elizabeth ended up interrupting Kaylene, which provoked sharp words in what the audience would have thought were the closing moments of the play. (More later on why I write "would have thought"!) Elizabeth's assessment of the relationship between Lear and Cordelia was interesting. She suggested that the reason why Cordelia has to be banished is precisely because Lear recognises her love for him is pure and true, and that it will not stand up to public scrutiny or display, unlike the grandiose words of Goneril or Regan, and he, maintaining his own façade, cannot fit her into his larger stage.

Perhaps the clinching moment of recursion was when following the tense confrontation between Kaylene, Elizabeth and Paul, after which the audience instinctively applauded, they were interrupted by Kaylene calling out, once again, "Cut!" This harked back to the opening of the play, and what followed was a bizarre reenactment of that opening scene once more, freezing just before Remesh would have made his entrance. At a loss, the audience waited with bated breath, until it became clear nothing was going to happen, and one by one, started to applaud again. To me, this implicated the audience in the audition process. Just as the tension between director, assistant and producer possibly foreshadowed the conflicts of tomorrow's production (Dover Cliff - The Conditions Of Representation), this closing scene may be hinting at the role of the audience come Friday's production (The Lear Universe). To paraphrase and mangle Paul's final lines, the ideal Lear exists beyond our scope of comprehension, and we exist as something dreamt up by the darkness in which it resides. Is there such a thing as the perfect way to perform King Lear, and by extension, any dramatic work? After witnessing tonight's production, it would be difficult to answer in the affirmative. Every performance is another iteration, striving to move closer to that elusive ideal.