Lear

adapted by Ramesh Meyyappan
based on the play by William Shakespeare

Raw Material
Singapore International Festival of Arts 2025
SOTA Studio Theatre, Singapore

There are few plays quite as epic as King Lear. It embraces all of humanity in its grasp: king and pauper, father and child, madness and reason, sight and blindness. All playing out in a cosmic battle of good versus evil. Can it be done any other way? Glasgow-based Singaporean theatre maker Ramesh Meyyappan offers an eloquent answer in this SIFA commission presented by Raw Material in association with the National Theatre of Scotland, distilling the great Shakespearean tragedy into a wordless domestic drama that unfolds in just an hour. 

In this taut, stripped-down version adapted and performed by Meyyappan, Lear is a soldier surrounded by his three daughters: Goneril (Nicole Cooper), Regan (Amy Kennedy) and Cordelia (Draya Maria). All other characters have been excised. He stands tall and proud at the beginning as he slowly prepares for battle, shaving and donning his uniform. The picture of authority and respectability. He snaps at his daughters as they nervously skirt around him, trying to help. When he finally returns from battle, weary and having lost his hearing, he suffers from PTSD and slowly finds his mind unravelling. 

Being a deaf artist, Meyyappan has always used a rich visual language to communicate and here, he manages to capture the essence of Shakespeare's tale while putting his own spin on the well-worn narrative. It's still very much about one man's descent into madness but poetry and political intrigues have been traded for a quieter reckoning. So much of Lear is about the battle of the mind and what better way to convey this than by taking away his sense of hearing, making him trapped in a world which feels increasingly alien to him?  

Photo Credit: Tommy Ga-Wen Wan

Director Orla O'Loughlin orchestrates the action in a beautiful mix of movement and sound, aided by Derek Anderson's evocative lighting and David Paul Jones' haunting soundscapes. Most of the action takes place in a spartan, circular space that adds to the tension and claustrophobia as the characters interact. An image of the war-returned Lear thrashing around in bed, running soil helplessly through his hands, is eerily reminiscent of Poor Tom in the heath. This Lear is both hero and villain, both father and fool — a fact driven home by him donning a fool's cap in a scene that grotesquely blends comedy and tragedy. Meyyappan turns in a powerful, touching performance that captures both the character's arrogance and vulnerability, painting a vivid portrait of growing old, living with disability and slowly losing one's grip on reality. 

Those looking for textual fidelity are unlikely to find it here. There is less of an attempt to paint Goneril and Regan as spiteful, power-hungry villains and to distinguish them from Cordelia; the three daughters exist mostly as foils to Lear. However, if we were to strip the play down to its core, is it not a story about the fractured relationship between a father and his daughters? In a touching scene that echoes the beginning, it is the daughter who shaves the quiet and deflated father, a man who has now lost his power and agency. Lear is of course only human and cannot accept the changed reality, lashing out against his daughters as he suffers mental outbursts. It is perhaps apt that here, it is Lear himself who ultimately causes Cordelia to meet her fate. 

Meyyappan and his team have crafted a poignant take on Lear that is both incisive and revelatory, a feat all the more impressive given that it does not rely on words. This is rich and moving physical theatre from a master of the craft. 

The Crystalwords score: 3.5/5