Q: It’s not an obvious choice for a schools audiences. What inspired the decision to stage King Lear as the next First Encounters production?
The RSC has taken a really visionary approach to selecting which Shakespeare’s plays it tours as part of its First Encounters programme. First Encounters shows are aimed at younger and newer audience and are performed in school, community and theatre settings all over the country, so the idea was to adopt a collaborative approach where we really listened to what issues were impacting and resonating with the young people and communities that we work in. We did a series of research and development sessions all over the country where we talked at length about what issues were affecting those groups and felt current. That feedback then informed our decision-making.
Q: What themes from the play do you think will particularly resonate with young people and connect to current issues?
During those R&D sessions a desire for equity and concerns about leadership kept cropping up. There’s a sense that globally world leaders aren’t listening, especially around urgent issues like climate change. And young people, whose lives are centred around teachers and parents, consistently talked about wanting more equitable relationships with mutual respect and open-mindedness from adults. Those were the things I was hearing so the choice of The Tempest which toured the country earlier this year and King Lear, which will tour from September, both came from that process. King Lear resonates because the storm mirrors the deterioration of both the Kingdom and Lear’s mind and the play itself deals with issues like leadership, family, generational conflict and the consequences of neglect.
Q: How did you adapt King Lear to make it accessible and engaging for a younger audience?
Those sessions also heavily influenced how I am thinking about staging the play. First Encounters shows are abridged versions of Shakespeare’s original plays so we knew we had to edit it down and I knew I wanted to foreground the child voice. The original is getting on for around four hours and our version is about an hour and fifteen minutes – so a lot of Lear’s monologues have gone and the focus has shifted to the relationships between Lear’s daughters and making space for the voices and experiences of younger characters. We did an R&D session to test out the approach and the invited audience of local children were immediately on board and vocalising the injustice of some sons and daughters being favoured over others and girls being made to marry husbands that they didn’t want to. It clearly struck a cord and spoke directly to some of their own lived experiences.
Q: What creative choices did you make in staging and character to connect with young audiences?
As part of the refocus on younger voices Lear’s Fool will be portrayed as quite a childlike figure in our version. Acting as a bridge between the young audience and the adult world of the play, the Fool will mirror how children often speak truth to power if only we, the adults, would listen to what they have to say. At the start of the play the Fool will mingle with the audience, getting to know them, imitating them and playing around with them. Then at the end, where the original play’s close feels quite bleak, we wanted to offer some hope. So we’ve given the Fool an epilogue and commissioned the spoken word poet to craft that epilogue with input from young people in Birmingham. The idea is to give validity to the voices of the young people who often feel ignored and unheard and offer a space for hope using the voices of children and young people.
I also wanted to hear the voices of the people of the Kingdom. In the original, King Lear gives very few citizens a voice so the conceit we’ve created is that the story will be introduced and told through the cast of actors who will appear on stage at the start as a group of people who have been displaced by conflict and Lear’s neglect. They will enter the stage with a cart full of props as an ensemble who travel the country, telling their story whenever they can, in a bid to prevent history from repeating itself. That feels particularly resonant in today’s world where we see so much conflict, upheaval and displacement.
Q: How are young people involved beyond just watching the performance?
There’s a few interactive elements. As well as the involvement of children and young people’s voices to help shape the Fool’s epilogue, at the end, we want to open up those questions and ask young people what would they change and what would they do to shape the world that they live in. So our team of Creative Associates who will be working with schools in advance of the tour will talk to them about their ideas and then at the end of each show, we will invite the young audience to a brief “town hall” discussion, asking them what kind of world they want to help create. Their ideas may be captured in writing or symbolically planted as “seeds” on the set’s trees, representing renewal and hope. We also provide resources for teachers and parents to prepare children for these conversations.
Q: Why do you believe theatre for young people is so important and why do you think it’s often undervalued ?
I particularly enjoy making theatre for young people because there is so much wisdom and potential in them that we fail to bring out. Too often, adults and our education system treats children as empty vessels that need to be filled, rather than as individuals with ideas that should be drawn out. The word education comes from the latin ‘ex’ and ‘ducare’ meaning to draw out not to put in. What excites me is finding ways to draw out what their thinking is and provide them with space to grow that thinking. Theatre and the arts are essential for helping them explore and express their understanding of the world and more specifically, my work aims to validate their voices and encourage creative thinking.
There’s a persistent notion that work with children is somehow “lesser” or separate from mainstream theatre. This stems from a lack of understanding of how to truly listen to and engage with young people. In reality, nurturing their creativity and curiosity is vital for societal progress.
Q: How does the set design reinforce the production’s themes?
The set features a floorcloth representing the land of Lear’s kingdom, which Lear divides between his daughters and upon which the daughters stake their claim to their pieces of land —mirroring debates over land and ownership in today’s world. The set also features barren trees of the heath, reflecting the consequences of exploitation and extraction during Lear’s reign. As the children share their ideas at the end of the performance the idea is that these ideas and thoughts are symbolically “planted” on stage, suggesting the possibility of renewal and new hope with a new generation.
Q: What do you hope young audiences will take away from this production?
We hope they feel heard, empowered, and inspired to think about leadership, fairness, and their own role in shaping the future. By directly involving them in the performance and post-show discussion, we want to spark hope and agency in the next generation.
