Summary 
Traditional staging of the complex tragedy features minimal sets and movement but lushly realized Elizabethan era costuming, with focus on character, especially a poignant and sympathetic Lear. Amiable and injured rather than senile or sadistic, this Lear memorably becomes a sorrowful old man in a handsome production brimming with strong supporting performances.
Design
Directed by Brian Bedford. Costumes by Ann Curtis. Set by Desmond Heeley. Lights by Michael Whitfield. Sound by Jim Neil. Compositions by Don Horsburgh.
Cast
Peter Donaldson (Kent), Scott Wentworth (Gloucester), Dion Johnstone (Edmund), Brian Bedford (King Lear), Wayne Best (Cornwall), Graham Harley (Albany), Wenna Shaw (Goneril), Wendy Robie (Regan), Sara Topham (Cordelia), Gareth Potter (Edgar), Bernard Hopkins (Fool).
Analysis
Brian Bedford draws double duty for King Lear at the Stratford Festival of Canada, both starring in the demanding title role as well as directing the production with its corollary to the retirement of artistic director Richard Monette. Bedford's dual effort is a rousing success, his handsomely crafted production a careful and articulate study of a kingdom in duress, and his characterization of Lear a profoundly moving portrait of a king learning to be a man. Bedford's sympathetic Lear, an aging and hyper-sensitive spoiled brat, seems to rejoice in the fawning of his subjects, and he makes his first appearance in a slow stagey strut through the audience to dramatic music, finally taking the stage as his courtiers bow, a sneering look of disdain on his face but a satisfied twinkle in his eye. The wonderfully layered costuming appears to be from Shakespeare's seventeenth century rather than Lear's eleventh, but the opulence and grandeur well suit the crowded ego of Bedford's Lear, who marches to his throne with a long train of white and gold robes trailing behind him. He sits, nose in the air, his hair long and fully gray, as is his beard and mustache, his favorite daughter Cordelia kneeling at his side. Bedford's Lear is fully realized, a memorable portrait of a proud but needy monarch, lashing out not in kingly reflex or aged vitriol but with the spasms of a deeply wounded father. From failed expectations to injured old man, Bedford's portrayal of the emotional Lear crosses an impressive arc, from outraged disbelief with a dose of hostility to reflexive sorrow with an undercurrent of pathos.
From early articles in the Canadian press, Bedford apparently directed rehearsals with an understudy in the title role, not fully taking on his own portrayal of King Lear until the dress rehearsal. Bedford as director minimizes the scenic and lighting design around the actors, concentrating instead on the subtlety of blocking and the nuance of the characterizations around Lear. The sisters are uniquely presented, Sara Topham's Cordelia - a reprise of her role opposite Christopher Plummer on the same stage five years earlier - a gentle and supportive daughter who appears nonetheless afraid of her unpredictable father's outbursts. Topham's pretty Cordelia contrasts against her shrill and much older sisters, nearly indistinguishable in big white collars and shortly cropped curls, their tight and unpleasant expressions identical. Goneril is a user and a manipulator, a carefully posed politician with a ruthless hunger for authority and influence, while Regan - with her husband Cornwall, a balding and goateed sadist in a puffy white shirt and over-the-knee black leather boots - is a sociopath with a twisted and cruel sense of entitlement. Regan's giggling glee at Cornwall's blinding of Gloucester smacks of sexual perversity, and her breathless passion for a coldly intellectual and calculating, dark-skinned and leather-and-studs Edmund carries with it a similar sadomasochistic repugnance. Bernard Hopkins' Fool is a wire-rim bespectacled old codger with a dry wit in a clownish cap, and his character's sudden and permanent disappearance seems as painful a loss to the audience as it is to Lear.
Even better among the supporting roles is Scott Wentworth's Gloucester, traveling a parallel arc with Lear in terms of his sons and his fate, but Wentworth's Gloucester learns quickly from his blindness - whereas Bedford's Lear must rage himself hoarse as if in primal scream therapy upon the heath in the storm - his penance emotional in his heartbreaking resignation rather than mental, as in Lear's tormented insanity. Wentworth's complex Gloucester is stooped over and seems feeble in the first act, but becomes ennobled in his blindness and in the "sight" of the true nature of his sons, and he becomes resolute and acts with conviction even as his doom approaches. But best among supporting performances is Peter Donaldson's stalwart Kent, true to his King despite his keen observance of Lear's age and folly, a strong and clear-headed hero who provides in the end a hopeful counterpart and ally to the emotionally-cleansed champion Edgar. Donaldson's Kent becomes an anchoring element, a rock of decency and loyalty and honor paralleled only by the similarly wronged and banished Cordelia.
But the production belongs to Bedford, and especially his portrayal of Lear, less an angry and roaring King than a petulant and unconstrained monarch, and less a blustering madman than a sadly injured old man. Bedford's Lear is a man of amiability and sorrow, donning a crown of thorns and a plain white robe within the raging thunderstorm. The downfall is all the more pitiful due to the sympathetic portrayal, and the brief reunion with Topham's angelic Cordelia brings with it a palpable ache. Bedford's bedraggled Lear returns to the stage in robes, his white hair combed as he sags against the kneeling Cordelia, who kisses his hand. The later closing moments are painfully poignant, with Bedford's Lear clawing at his clothes as if to escape them, then exclaiming - "look there, look there" - as if he truly is witnessing a rising angel in the soul of his dead daughter. The conclusion resonates, and there is rousing applause for the entire cast at the curtain call that becomes a roaring standing ovation with the emergence of the resplendent Bedford.