King Lear by William Shakespeare

Submitted by the Event Organizer

King Lear
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Michael Socrates Moran
Music Composed by Paul Dresher

Oakland Theater Project and New Performance Traditions present a bold, music-driven production of Shakespeare’s King Lear, directed by Michael Socrates Moran. Ritual, spectacle, and Shakespeare’s extraordinary language collide in a world thrown out of balance by Lear’s disastrous choices.

Music is central to this contemporary staging of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Paul Dresher’s original score is performed live by the Dresher|Davel Invented Instrument Duo: Dresher on Hurdy Grande and keyboard, and Joel Davel on Marimba Lumina and percussion. The visually striking invented instruments allow two musicians to create an expansive electro-acoustic sound world with the rhythmic and dramatic power of a much larger ensemble.

Dresher has organized the score around three evolving musical worlds. The first represents the ritual and spiritual order that Lear disrupts at the beginning of the play, drawing upon sounds and structures inspired by music from India and Indonesia. Edmund’s world is its opposite: intensely rhythmic, aggressive, and almost entirely electronic. Cordelia’s world introduces a lyricism brought to life by singer and actor Dina Zarif. The music of the Fool, performed by Rinde Eckert, moves between the ritual world and Cordelia’s lyricism as these contrasting musical languages collide throughout the drama.

“This production places the spirit of the Fool at the center of King Lear,” said Director Michael Socrates Moran. As Lear journeys across the heath of his suffering, “Edmund unleashes a clown show, determined to expose a kingdom of fools and profane everything [once held] sacred. By pitting spectacle, excess and absurdity against ritual, essence and spirituality, the production asks whether Lear—and perhaps all of us—can reckon with our own foolishness before the sacred center collapses.”

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