ABSTRACT
At Talawa Theatre Company, at which I am Education Officer, we did a production of King Lear, and we had an interesting response from the newspaper critics. One critic wrote: ‘One of the least endearing features of Talawa’s King Lear is its flirtation with Afro-Caribbean culture, which becomes a dabbling in the exotic, even the primitive. Alas, poor Lear, we thought we knew him well’. Talawa’s director, Yvonne Brewster, was amused at the suggestion that she could be accused of flirting with her own cultural heritage, but Yvonne took the critic’s plaintive comment ‘Alas, poor Lear, we thought we knew him well’ as a compliment. There would be no point in any director or company putting on a production if all they intended to do was provide people with what they already knew. It’s been interesting for me to measure the criticism against the unprecedented response we’ve had from student audiences in Secondary and Higher Education, many of whom, unlike our critic, do not know Lear well yet have been inspired to study, research and perform the play in colleges and schools. I’m reminded of the story of the renovation of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo’s fresco had been covered over with dust for many years. When it was cleaned and restored many of the critics were horrified to discover the original and its brightness. My reply is "Alas, poor Michelangelo, we thought we knew you well!"
