future shows :: King Lear, A Cabaret for the Final Time(s)
By: William Shakespeare
Adapted and Directed: Martin Danziger
As I approach death, peeling off the masks, I ask myself the question, who am I? What is underneath the greasepaint? Then comes the moment when I do recognise who or what I really am. I begin to laugh. For the first time in my life, I am really laughing and, as the tears of laughter course down my face, I discover I am irredeemably ridiculous. (Sabatini)
A burlesque two hander for the end of the world inspired by King Lear. This startling reinvention of Shakespeare’s classic pushes the decadent old king and his story into the spotlight of the cabaret stage. The show imagines Lear as a cabaret performer on his final tour determined to go out in a blaze of glory. Shunned by society, his only companion is the reluctant fool, who is far more concerned that it is the world and not just the show that is at the end of its days.
The performance mixes contemporary political satire and Shakespeare with traditional burlesque and cabaret sketches to shed a darkly comic and irreverent light on our ideas of authority and justice.
