We hope you enjoyed your Quantum experience and we’d love to hear your thoughts on King Lear. Leave a comment below and tell us what you liked, disliked, or anything in particular that may have resonated with you. Thank you for your feedback.
What did you think of King Lear?
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I believe that this is one of Quantum’s most interesting productions. The Carrie Blast Furnace setting for Lear is a brilliant idea. The location elicits emotions both relevant to and apart from Lear. The dual stages, from grandiose to intimate is evocative and appropriate.
I do have an observation re sound design. While much of the use of wireless mics was effective and appropriate, I found t use of reverse directionality when an actor is facing stage right or stage left, while it does keep dialogue generally audible, sometimes (& I feel, too often) misleads your eyes as to which actor is speaking the dialogue. This is an unfortunate, and I am certain, an unintended consequence of the technical solution to insure continuous audibility of the stage dialogue because your ear draws your eyes away from the actor delivering the dialogue and then one must scan the stage to again find the appropriate actor.
This was mainly a problem in the 1st act, where the spaces are large and the placement of sound reinforcement speakers are stage right & left. I was located in the larger stage left set of risers, within approx 20 ft of the stage left speaker. I would image that with some tweaking, this problem can be lessened.
Bravo to all who worked to make this Lear the success it promises to be.
My husband and I attended the very exciting performance of King Lear on Mother’s Day. It was my choice and my husband, age 87, announced that one act was enough for him. So my remarks are limited. Bravo, Quantum! Another imaginative rendering of a timeless play. I was inspired to reread the original, but did not get to see what the adaptive version would have been. The message of going mad and having one’s daughters betray one in old age carries a significant message. What you sow is what you harvest. And the likening of the decline of the steel industry with rusty obsolete equipment and CEO’s who were like kings is a real one. But the message of hope in the program with new leadership and new developments ( technology and health care) is the phoenix rising from the ashes. A very thought-provoking performance.
Well, we’re biased but loved it—the parallels between two lost worlds is brilliantly conceived and carried out–
and the world’s bleakest tragedy’s force is multiplied by the setting (wonderful work by Karla Boos), the
brilliant direction of Risher, and sensational acting. Thank you all!!
This is one of the most exceptional plays Quantum has done in the 10 years I have been a subscriber. The venue matched to Lear was pure genius. The use of the site in the staging was innovative and greatly enhanced the play. The acting was moving and carried the tragedy of Lear. Costumes, lighting, sound and music were superb.
If you can it is a must to see this play. And if there are no tickets available, perhaps Karla can find a way to extend the run.
Brilliant! Once-in-a-lifetime experience. Really glad that we were able to see it.
This performance was amazing. I’m still replaying parts of it in my mind a week and a half later. Bravo on putting together an incredible Lear in all dimensions: acting, stage, and environment! If there were more seats I’d come see it again.
To support the memories of those who got to be there, and the imaginations of those who didn’t, I wish there were a few more photos or clips of it online besides the trailer. Among my wish list would be some wide shots of the populated, lit stages, a shot of each character, and an audio recording of “Whose (Which) Side Are You On?”. Site-specific theater is necessarily ephemeral, but our memories of it don’t have to me. Thanks for the incredible show!
Certainly one of the most effective exploitations of an unusual setting for theater that Quantum has ever done. However I’m not sure that shifting after the first act to the secondary space was worthwhile, for when the production resumed after intermission I felt a certain let-down sans the furnace background The scenes on the heath and Gloucester’s blinding were hair-raisingly powerful for me and went a long way to dispelling the claim that the play is a superb dramatic poem that cannot be realized in any theatrical production (hence its relatively infrequent performance among the major tragedies?). Kudos to the cast (esp. Carpenter and Dixon), the sound effects director, and the script adapters. After being rained out on our first evening, I’m doubly glad not to have missed this remarkable production, which was vastly superior to the only other production of the play I’ve ever seen. The national attention it garnered was appropriate, and I’m only sorry that arrangements with the Carrie historical site lacked the flexibility for the longer run that audience demand might have justified.