KING LEAR
Director's Note
“A man is made of memories. It is all we are. Captured moments, the smell of a place, scenes played out time and again on a small stage.
We are memories, strung on storylines--the tales we tell ourselves about ourselves, falling through our lives into tomorrow... Memory is all we are. Moments and feelings, captured in amber, strung on filaments of reason. Take a man’s memories and you take all of him.
Chip away a memory at a time and you destroy him as surely as if you hammered nail after nail through his skull.”
― Mark Lawrence (Author)
My greatest fear is the loss of my memories. It scares me more than death. I watched my grandmother go into the depths of dementia. When she was fully present, I loved making her laugh out loud and I would have my grandma back. Those precious moments became fewer and fewer as time went on. I would be in the room with her for an hour before she would see me for the first time. One minute she thought we were in Honduras, the next in Arizona. There were some moments that were comical, simply because the human heart had to find levity. Other times the pain was too much. I can't imagine the torment families endure living with a loved one suffering from Alzheimer's.
King Lear may be perhaps Shakespeare's most human of plays: a play where we face our mortality through madness and memory. Through the abandonment of loved ones, through regret and forgiveness, Lear asks us how we will be remembered or how we will be forgotten.
I dedicate this play to my grandmother. While you lost your memory, it lives on in my heart, in my mind...and in my art.
All photos of KING LEAR by: Reiko Yanagi
“Superbly directed by Alberto Bonilla, the production has an almost bi-polar slant. — Bonilla’s [production] has just the team that works smoothly with Pendleton and possesses the ability to make Shakespeare sound natural in a very contemporary setting—not an easy feat.”
“Director Alberto Bonilla and his ensemble focus on developing strong, complex, and believable characters. Bonilla moves the setting forward to a facility for ailing seniors. Lear (Austin Pendleton) suffers from Alzheimer’s, dementia, or potentially both, and the narrative of Lear plays out as a product of that illness.”
Starring: Austin Pendleton, Elizabeth A. Davis, Melissa MacLeod, Meggy Hai Trang, Richard Mazda, Nick Chris, Zachary Clark, Christopher McFarland, Alexander Stine, Timothy Mullins, Jack Herholdt, Thomas Muccioli, Rand Guerrero, and Paul Wallace.
Set Design by Michael David, Lighting design by Naftali Wayne, Sound Design by Mike Lee, and Costumes by Viviane Galloway.
Photo by: Reiko Yanagi