King Lear in Hickory Community Theatre

"You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both!"

Bill Boyd as King Lear.

King Lear returned to life on a rainy night in Hickory, commanding a stage shuddering with lightning and thunder and other flashes and rumbles of madness and blindness that reached out far beyond any simple dream of despair. 

Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! Spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, these are my daughters

Not an easy play to understand because you really have to see it first. It doesn’t make sense until it is over, and when meaning comes, it comes in glimpses and you see a little bit here and a little bit over there.  But it shows the importance of seeking to understand that which lies behind what is presented for viewing, searching deeper than just those flashes that flicker across one’s retina.  King Lear is really a story about the blindness one inflicts on one’s own soul through an intentional denial of reason. 

The play was probably one of the best the Hickory Community Theatre has produced in its 63 year history because it compressed so much humanity into one stage, and because the actors all played the main parts so well.  As the story progressed it became easy to understand that ALL of the actors there were insane, and we left wondering  when did we first notice they had each gone mad, and why didn’t we notice it before?  And – well, maybe – perhaps we should look more closely at other people we know?  Hmmmmm.

The night on the heath was well presented and reminded us all of nightmares we have had, even though we probably did not play our own part in those mad dreams as well as Bill Boyd played that of King Lear tonight on this stage.  

Jonathan Ray, playing the Earl of Gloucester and George Page as Edgar, the Earl’s son participated in one of the great scenes of the play, the leap off the cliff.  The saddest part of the entire play though was seeing in the play notes that George Page is departing HCT.  Godspeed George.  We WILL MISS you!

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!"


Old King Lear

was consumed by the fear

that his daughters didn’t really love him.  

At least not as much

as he thought they should – 

to inherit the keys to his country.  

So he asked them a question  

they wouldn’t dare answer,

and it led them all to Dover.  

Where they found the answers 

to many deep questions 

in a famous and sad reunion.

"Things that love night
Love not such nights as these."