Hicks takes on Lear at RSC

26 February 2010

A KING Lear with echoes of the past and future comes to the stage of the RSC's Courtyard Theatre later this month.
Directed by RSC Associate Director David Farr, it will be the eighth production, cast from the current RSC ensemble of 44 actors, to join the RSC repertoire and previews in Stratford, opening on February 18.
Designer John Bausor and Farr - who collaborated together on the RSC’s 2009 production of The Winter’s Tale - have created a dystopian
world- a mix of the medieval and post industrial.
Greg Hicks takes the title-role in the first RSC Lear since Trevor Nunn's celebrated 2007 staging starring Ian McKellan, with Kathryn Hunter playing the Fool.
Farr also writes for film and TV, and has written eight episodes of the BBC's Spooks. He has also written a screenplay for Focus Features called Hanna which will be filmed in 2010.
Hicks plays Leontes in The Winter’s Tale - also directed by Farr - and the title role in Julius Caesar. Both plays opened in 2009, and will return to the Stratford repertoire in the summer. Hicks' other work for the company includes Coriolanus in 2002/3, Agamemnon in Tantalus in 2000/1, Macbeth in Dominic Cooke’s 2004 production and the Ghost of Old Hamlet in Michael Boyd’s Hamlet in 2004.
RSC Associate Artist Hunter joined the ensemble last summer and has performed in two new plays for the company – The Grain Store by Natali’a Vorozhbit and Juliet in Ben Power’s A Tender Thing, a re-imagining of Romeo and Juliet. She is one of the country’s most versatile actors, renowned for her physicality, and is also in rehearsals for her role as Cleopatra in Boyd’s production of Antony and Cleopatra.
The cast also includes Charles Aitken as Edgar, with Tunji Kasim playing his brother Edmund. Lear’s daughters are played by Kelly Hunter (Goneril), Katy Stephens (Regan) and Samantha Young (Cordelia).
Geoffrey Freshwater, who has played over 70 roles for the RSC over four decades, will play the Duke of Gloucester, and Darrell D’Silva the Duke of Kent.
For tickets and further information visit www.rsc.org.uk or call the box office on 0844 800 1110.

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