Related Articles
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A new edit of Shakespeare’s KING LEAR will receive a FREE reading on July 9.
PITTSBURGH, PA (June 14, 2017)— KING LEAR may be the most adapted of all Shakespeare’s plays, starting with Nahum Tate’s neo-classical version, to hundreds of modern versions on stage and film (Kurosawa’s RAN being most famous). This version, edited by scholar of Shakespeare and classical drama, Julian Markels, and Guggenheim Fellow James Kincaid seeks to accomplish two goals: to clarify deeply obscure passages, slightly streamlining the play, and to make as striking as possible the shattering historical and tragic message it delivers.
That message is that everything we value, that has worth and compass, has been taken from us, gone forever. It is a ruthlessly divided world: the old and lost medieval world and the modern world, our own world and being. Everything, absolutely everything, is at stake in this agonizing and heartbreaking play.
Mr. Kincaid says, “This version of the play emphasizes what is at stake for all of us. Put very briefly, our hearts and longings are with those about to disappear as surely as the phoenix—Lear, Cordelia, Kent, Edgar, Gloucester, the Fool—and the play forces us to see that the unspeakable monsters (Cornwall, Goneril, Reagan, Edmund, Oswald) are our mirror images.”
This reading will be directed by Risher Reddick and feature a cast of Pittsburgh’s most exciting actors including: Ken Bolden, Lissa Brennan, Jeffrey Carpenter, Tami Dixon, James Fitzgerald, Jessie Goodman, Catherine Gowl, Nancy McGeever, Tim McGeever, Connor McCanlus, and Michael Angelo Turner.
“It’s a thrilling opportunity to work on this play with this cast in conversation with these towering intellects,” says director Reddick. “King Lear asks us to grapple with our relationship to mortality. How much will we still hold onto when it’s our time to let go? Will we rage or will we go gently? Either way, we will go, and we will go alone.”
The reading of LEAR is free and open to the public and will take place at 937 Liberty Avenue 1st floor on Sunday, July 9 at 7PM. To secure a reservation please email your ticket request to Tami at tami@webbricolage.org
###
Media Contact:
Tami Dixon
tami@webbricolage.org
646.359.1993