KING LEAR
When: Feb. 12-May 6.
Where: A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena.
Tickets: $25-$86.
Information: 626-356-3100, www.anoisewithin.org.
In repertory: Man of La Mancha March 26-May 21.
When: Feb. 12-May 6.
Where: A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena.
Tickets: $25-$86.
Information: 626-356-3100, www.anoisewithin.org.
In repertory: Man of La Mancha March 26-May 21.
Although contemporaries William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes never met, their works have proved timeless and have often graced the same stages. Audiences are invited to look for connections between the two when Shakespeare’s tragedy, “King Lear” runs Feb. 12 to May 6 in repertory with the musical, “Man of La Mancha,” March 26 to May 21 at A Noise Within in Pasadena.
A Noise Within is commingling the two productions, sharing its director, Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, design team, set and some of its cast, including lead actor, Geoff Elliott.
“The more you get into the plays, the more you find the connections,” Rodriguez-Elliott said. “Some of it is not something that is there and that you completely identify going into rehearsal, you get to discover things when you’re in the middle of a process.”
“They’re both impossible dreams,” Elliott said. “Quixote is dreaming an impossible dream, a dream of being able to take on all of the wrongs of the world and make them right, something that’s obviously impossible, but it’s a dream he tries to bring into reality. And Lear almost immediately begins to live an impossible dream, one that he could never ever imagine, it’s really more of an impossible nightmare.”
Lear and Quixote are similar
Elliott said that King Lear and Cervantes/Don Quixote are very different types of men, but they both transport themselves into different realities. Lear goes from having the best of everything to being stripped down to nothing, not even owning his own clothes, and finally learns the meaning of love. Through Quixote, Cervantes reaches deeper into himself so he can face the Spanish Inquisition. Ultimately, both works highlight the importance of hope and relationships.
“I don’t really think about the connections,” Rodriguez-Elliott said of directing the pieces. “I do allow an audience to make their own, and they’ll make others that maybe we haven’t thought of.”
She is focused on the bigger challenge of making the plays accessible to today’s audiences.
Classic plays, such as “King Lear,” have been done so many times that you have to push that aside and approach it as if no one’s ever done it before, Rodriguez-Elliott said. Her goal is to present the tragedy in a modern context so that it has a recognizable 20th century sensibility, but not to the point where the audience can place its setting in history.
With “La Mancha,” she is avoiding the fairy-tale approach taken by some directors, as she doesn’t find it as interesting as exploring how a man can use his imagination to give people in hopeless conditions something to live for.
And again, in both, the emphasis is on what lies at the core of humanity.
“Once you strip everything away, what are we really? We’re the essence that’s all we are. All we have is right now, this second, our relationship with each other. There’s really nothing else,” Elliott said.
If you want to see ‘King Lear’
When: Feb. 12-May 6.
Where: A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena.
Tickets: $25-$86.
Information: 626-356-3100, www.anoisewithin.org.
In repertory: Man of La Mancha March 26-May 21.
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