In Continuum.

Ovation

There was a cloud of doubt in the air, surrounding the perimeters of my head like a halo of an angel, only not nearly as bright and beautiful. The afternoon sun was glaring, and its force was not lessened by the rain that swept the island in the morning past. Dressed in a white shirt and a simple pants, I made my way down the escalators at the train station, decently dressed for the night ahead. The cloud of doubts still shrouded my head as the train made its way down the long dark tunnels, like a serpent digging its hole in the ground. The doubts were the result of my experiences with Shakespearean plays, or rather the lack thereof. I have read and seen a couple of them, but never any from the original Shakespearean theater cast. All of them were from the pages of books, sub-par plays put up by peers at school as well as the movie adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, which is perhaps the most over-rated Shakespeare play of all.

Approaching King Lear was probably out of curiosity more than admiration. Truth to be told, I was a rather foreign person regarding the play itself before I purchased the tickets. A month ago before my computer, I was desperate to get my ticket for the show, which was rapidly selling out at that time. A few weeks before my birthday it was, and my mother decided to make it a birthday gift of sorts. There was an eagerness inside of me to catch Ian Mckellen in action, but at the same time I had my doubts about the play itself, as well as the fact that it was going to be performed in Shakespearean language. It's not an alien language, but it's just not a language that I am familiar with. It works better on pages for me, but spoken verbally posed as a problem for me back then. However, without much thinking and hesitations, I bought the ticket online, the last remaining ticket of the rapidly selling out seats. I got myself a seat on the fifth row, disgustingly close to the stage itself. It was a good seat I reckoned, but at the same time I still had doubts that lingered in my mind, as to whether or not it is going to be worth while. The same doubts followed me through the dark tunnel, as the train sped on down the tracks towards City Hall.

Aside from all the unnecessary nostalgia that plagued the steps of Esplanade, I tried to distract myself from them by thinking about the time at Lido cinemas when Krishna and gang came with a mysterious bag. Sitting down before the giant screen that showed movie trailers a million times over, the contents of the mysterious bag was revealed to me. It was a big box about the size of a school bag, with a clear plastic sheet on one side. Within the box was an action figure of a white wizard sitting upon a horse. As a fan of The Lord of the Rings, I immediately recognized the action figure as Gandalf the White, sitting upon his horse - Shadowfax. It is probably one of the most prized birthday gift I have, and it still stands in the glass display cupboard in my room as I type. I've known Ian Mckellen even before the X-Men and LOTR days, but my fanaticism really started when he placed a sharpened hat on his head and rode a cart into Hobbiton. It was a dream that stemmed from then, to see the man himself before my eyes, along with Peter Jackson and other greats of course. However, as I walked up the steps towards the Esplanade theater, the excitement within my heart was overshadowed by mostly that doubt of mine, the ones that prevented me from letting out my enthusiasm for the event.

Prior to this day, I did my research online by reading through the script for the play itself. Like I said before, I have no problem understand the plot through words, but verbal communication really was a barrier that I needed to cross. With the school work piling on top of me in this last weeks of the semester, I've had little time with the script, which was why I reached merely the end of Act I before I left for home this afternoon. I braved my heart against my doubts, took it out of my chest and roughed up the surface with the palms of my hands. It was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me, and I was not going to allow my doubts to become an intrusion to my thorough enjoyment. So I took a deep breath, and gave my ticket to the attendants who directed me to my seat soon after. With my mind cleared and my troubled thoughts vanquished, I was ready for anything thrown upon me from the stage.

I felt under-dressed, overwhelmed by the way the others dressed for the play itself. Even children half my age wore clothes that were more expensive than my wardrobe added together, and multiplied by three. A girl of fourteen - and no younger - came down the stairs with a LV purse that looked disgustingly unfitting on her straw-like arms. Which made my presence at the main lobby rather out of place, like a sore thumb sticking out of the good ones. I retreated into a corner and flipped through the pages of the free magazine given out to us concerning the Royal Shakespeare Theater. Soon enough, it was our time to enter the grand hall, and I found my seat merely two meters away from the stage itself, and a pretty good view of everything at that.

Sitting next to me was a lesbian couple - I suspected - and a woman in her mid-thirties I suppose, who gave me a vibe that she wanted to be left alone despite my thoughts about striking up a conversation. She didn't seem as if she wanted to be disturbed from her...well, she wasn't doing anything really. But she just gave me that feeling, which was why I kept chiefly to myself, while the rest of the time before eight was spent flipping through the pages and reading the profiles of the cast over and over. The awkward feeling was soon eradicated when the lights were dimmed, and the only lights that were left on from the top of the stage lighted up the faces of the audience. A row of men dressed in dark robes emerged from the back in two neat rows, coming to the front of the stage and then bending away to either side of it at the edge. Then came three women, who must have been Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. Then came King Lear - Sir Ian Mckellen - royally dressed with a radiance all about him. The robe reached the floor and followed far behind his body, and he came to the front of the stage with much glamor and majesty. Without a word spoken, he was a king already - in all our minds, if not merely in mine.

For the next three and a half hours, the crowd was treated to the story of King Lear, and how decided to abdicate and divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters by having them confess their love to him. Gonedril and Regan - the eldest and the second daughter - both wanted more than what they deserved, and plotted against their father. His youngest and the most beloved Cordelia, felt that it would cheapen her love for her father, if she was to put her heart in her mouth. Therefore, she said nothing during their individual confessions, and that angered the king greatly. She was banished from the kingdom alongside his own faithful servant Earl of Kent, and then we see the slow degradation of the prideful king into the hellish pits of madness.

You see Lear's anger overpowering his judgment in the earlier parts of the show, manipulated by his daughters and pushed around until his sanity hung by a thin thread. The argument as to whose household he was to stay with was the last straw for the king, as both his daughters refused to accommodate him. He realized that the daughter that truly loved him was the same daughter he banished from the kingdom. Therefore, Lear dashed into a storm with his fool after falling victim to his own rage. There is a subplot here involving Edmund and Edgar, and their father the Earl of Gloucester. But that involves a lot more explaining and a lot more synopsis, which might not be very good for the impatient readers here. It involves a lot of betrayal, a lot of backstabbing, and a lot of villainy. This is a Shakespeare tragedy, and he never meant it to be done otherwise. You are not going to step out of the theater feeling like you just watched the most enjoyable play of all time, because it isn't. Moving, perhaps, but not enjoyable.

The tone of the play is a heavy one, and the most disturbing thing is probably the fact that this is not merely a script written by a famous writer, but almost like a social commentary of sorts. This sort of thing is happening even in today's context, and your heart grows heavy as Lear takes his steps into his gradual descent into insanity. He loses his mind midway through the play, running about in the wild with twigs and leaves as his crown and sputtered nonsense most of the time. Upon meeting his daughter Cordelia for the first time in years, he regains much of his previous valor, but that hope was short-lived and temporary. Like I mentioned before, this is a tragedy and does not have a happy ending at all. You are going to be moved by Lear's words, by his tears, and the hurtful moans as he comes out from the back of the stage carrying his dead daughter in his arms. The way he waved the feather in his air, hoping for it to stir in the wind to signify a faint sign of life in his daughter's lips, or the way he wailed in the silence of the theater...it was simply amazing.

The word 'amazing' doesn't even begin to describe how great the experience was. Even if you type the word 'amazing' in the search box at Dictionary.com, you are not going to find any other words more fitting for this play itself. There is a reason why it has been played and translated into numerous languages for the past four hundred years, and there is also a reason why people call it the 'Everest' of theater art. This is the epitome of it all, the kind of experience you'd have to be there to feel it for yourself. The power of the story, substantiated by the power of the actors on stage. Everybody was at their best, an all-round top-notch performance from everybody. But of course, I don't suppose anybody should expect any less from a cast such as the one I witnessed myself today. It is impossible to say that Ian Mckellen overshadowed everybody, because everybody was glowing in their roles as well. True enough, the attention was on Ian Mckellen for the most part. However, nobody can deny that it was the kind of play that defined standards. In relative, we are lightyears behind them, and the acting took my breath away by the end of it all.

It wasn't so much about the words spoken, but the way it resonated in the theater afterwards, and the silence that ensued. The actors grasped the silence in their hands, manipulated the emotions of the audience and tugged at our heart strings. It was possible to hear a pin drop in the silence, and it was possible to hear the beating of the hearts collectively as the emotions on the stage surged. It was difficult to withhold my own emotions, leaning forward most of the time towards the stage despite the raining saliva from the actors(Yeah, I was that close). I felt involved in the play itself, the dynamic of the theater overwhelming me like a tidal wave. It was like a vortex that sucked me into the story, and I hardly felt that it was almost four hours before the show ended with the lights dimmed once more and the thunderous applause began.

The lights came on again, and the whole cast was on the stage. They bowed together, and came back onto the stage in groups after the applauses refused to seize. Ian Mckellen was the last to enter the stage once more, and at the front of the stage he bowed with his left hand to his heart. The applauses were the loudest then, with the crowd standing at their feet and giving him a very well deserved standing ovation. He bowed low and repeatedly, and the applauses only grew louder and stronger.

Standing just meters away from him, I felt small all of a sudden, insignificant. However, not the sense of intimidation but rather a feeling of respect. The kind of respect you would give to a man who takes over words in your head, and takes away rationality and reason. Your mind becomes blanked out for a moment, just taking in the figure of the person before you, his silhouette as he stands with his back against the stage lights. There he was, my action figure coming to life before my eyes. I was floored then, blown away by what this man was able to accomplish as an actor - but more than that as well, in everything else.

Smelling the midnight air outside the theaters, I felt renewed for some reason. I cannot dare say that I have fully grasped the play, nor can I say that I am a Shakespeare convert even now. However, it WAS indeed an experience, and surely an experience that moved me beyond words. Perhaps the next time, a play such as this one may come to Singapore, and I may just take up the chance to catch it. Until then, I shall savor the taste of the bitterness the play left on my tongue, and also the salty taste of tears in my mouth after witnessing the sheer brilliance of it all.