Queen Goneril: three sisters usurp the king's spotlight
7 Sep 2022

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

Playwright Erin Shields (Beautiful Man) had an intellectual visceral reaction to Shakespeare's King Lear. The three sisters whose actions ostensibly drive the play are very quickly sidelined and reduced to single defining characteristics in the classic tragedy. Shields decided to create back stories and motivations for the sisters. Queen Goneril was born. Of course Shields has much more on her mind than riffing on Shakespeare and the play begins with a short film that initially appears to be a friendly promotional conversation between Virgilia Griffith (Iphigenia and the Furies, Harlem Duet, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Wedding Party, They Say He Fell) who plays Goneril in King Lear and Tom McCamus who plays the titular monarch. There is some light joshing that grows into actual tension as McCamus blathers obliviously, perpetuating both the sins of his character and a patriarchal attitude as his contemporary self. It is all cleverly scripted in a post-modern wink to let us know that the crimes and micro-aggressions against women in the past still exist.

 
Then, on to the play which catalogues just about every injustice against women that exists. Most of it works beautifully in an "Aha" moment manner, but too often a character will then explain what we just saw, hammering the point home when it had already been delicately shivved between our ribs. Not that Shields is too heavy-handed, all of the points are crucial and become integral to both the plot and the emotional resonance. The sisters' stories are as interesting and valid as Lear's. Shields also expands King Lear's scope to include politics and a world beyond the palace walls. This is incredibly effective as it gives stakes beyond the soapy. Heavy may be the head that wears the crown, but it is the effect of that head's policies and actions that affect most of the world. The dialogues between Goneril and Lear on what it takes to govern effectively, to be king or queen, are filled with a biting humour and even bitterer truths and confusion.

Shields even shoehorns in a brief moment of racial injustice commentary that unfortunately is just confusing. Everyone watching the play had long since stopped noticing that the three sisters are played by black actors. It is a valid and important point but one that sheer talent has reduced to a footnote. Far subtler is a monologue by Breton Lalama who, in a favourite Shakespearean device, becomes a woman disguised as a man in order to achieve love and make their way in the world. In this context it becomes a commentary on the way that men have an agency that women just don't. And that gender and sexuality are fluid constructs that are not always what they appear to be. Equally subtle is what seem to be asides by Nancy Palk (Wormwood) as a servant to the household. She gets a series of one-liners and comical but wise stories that would do a fool proud, before dropping a bombshell that not only drives the plot into overdrive, but echoes another three sisters. An deceptively offhand remark adds a delicious thematic layer, and a piercing reference to another social injustice. She truly is able to "take a bowl of shit and find something within it that glimmers."

As the sisters slam up against the constraints and physical violence that is their lot because of their gender, they rage and fight back. Vanessa Sears (Is God Is, Alice in Wonderland, Caroline, Or Change, Mary Poppins, The Wizard of Oz) as a Regan who masks her despair and anger with exuberance gets the most dramatic leeway. And she seizes it with an emotionally raw ferocity that equals the storm the sisters are trapped in. Where Goneril wants what is deservedly hers and will play politics and suppress her internal turmoil until it cracks, Regan explodes. With tragic results. She will not be contained and when she is, the heat generated in the eye contact between her and Edmond (Jonathan Young) is searing. In a complete role reversal from King Lear, the men are reduced to comic foils and plot devices. McCamus again lends his resonant tones to a dithering Lear, Oliver Dennis (A Streetcar Named Desire, Rose, La Bete, Animal Farm) is an entitled callous wolf in courtier's clothing, and Damien Atkins (Caroline, Or Change, We Are Not Alone, The Gay Heritage Project, London Road, Sextet, Mr Burns) has some lighthearted moments towards the end. Sheldon Elter (Bears) is a dangerously lovable lout, especially as he exchanges insults with Lear.

In some ways I wish I had seen Queen Goneril before King Lear, the way I suspect Soulpepper intends. But having had an intense refresher on the tragedy from which Queen Goneril springs, added a ruefully playful layer to the experience. Shields quotes from King Lear literally in two places with startling effect. Once it is prescient, the other drives home that the sisters' plight is no less tragic, in fact more dire, than Lear's. Unfortunately it also shows that Shakespeare's language, in all it's obtuseness and convolution to contemporary ears, has a ringing magic that modern English, despite Shield's skill, rarely achieves. There is an eerie preview of Gloucester's fate that is a gut punch, and seeing Edmond coiling instead of unleashing is a fascinating piece of actorly restraint and dexterity. A Shakespearean scholar, or a more observant audience member, would probably find many more cross references and clever additions. I was left with one question though. I'm not willing to offer a spoiler but a twist in Goneril's character made me question her eventual seduction of, or by, Edmond in the sequel.

While Queen Goneril is, if I am to be believed, packed with ideas and polemics, it is also extremely theatrical. Powerful performances fill the stage and the plot unspools with horror after horror, occasionally leavened with humour. While the characters and some of the plot may be borrowed or based on Shakespeare, Queen Goneril also achieves a Shakespearean resonance all of its own. On many occasions, I was swept up in the action before me, my critical analysis muted as my emotions reacted. And the final moment—a simple, eloquent and devastating image—made me gasp. Griffith and Shields had pulled the audience so deeply into Goneril's soul.