Irondale presents The Independent Eye theatre ensemble’s inspired two-person vision of William Shakespeare’s King Lear. Played out within the confines of an aluminum cage, King Lear and The Fool are accompanied by nearly 30 life-sized, hand, and finger puppets operated by actors and master puppeteers Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller.
King Lear is the puppeteer of his own puppet show, obsessively playing out his loss of family, power, friendship, shelter, sanity, and hope. In his mind, he is the only real human in his motherless kingdom of power and commodity, where love is merchandise for barter. The Fool, an acid clown who goads Lear in his desperation, stage-manages his story until they both succumb to Lear’s madness. This stunning two-person take on King Lear puts an ingenious spin on The Bard’s tragic tale of power and distorted love.
“We have approached Shakespeare only when we felt that we could bring a unique vision to the work,” said director and actor Conrad Bishop. “For us, Shakespeare is uniquely suited to puppetry because the stories are deeply metaphorical, and the medium allows shifts from realistic behavior to metaphor in startling ways. And puppets allow a broad gestural life that’s true to the Elizabethan style of acting and totally absent on the live-actor stage today."
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:
MONDAY & TUESDAY @ 7:30 PM
