Columns

University Theatre rounds out its 2005-2006 season with Shakespeare’s classic King Lear, featuring accomplished television and stage actor Lane Davies in the title role.

King Lear will run April 20-April 22 and April 26-April 29 at 8 p.m. and April 30 at 2:30 p.m. in the Fine Arts Theatre on the corner of Lumpkin and Baldwin streets. Regular admission is $12; admission for students and senior citizens with ID is $10. Tickets may be purchased at the University Theatre box office located in the lobby of the Fine Arts Building at the corner of Lumpkin and Baldwin streets. The box office is open noon-5 p.m. weekdays. Tickets also may be purchased at the theatre door one hour prior to show time. Reservations may be made in advance by calling the box office at (706) 542-2838.

A native of Dalton, Davies has been featured on such shows as Santa Barbara, Lois and Clark, Babylon 5, Scrubs and Third Rock from the Sun.

Throughout his television career, Davis has continued to perform regularly on the stage. The founder and artistic director of the Santa Susana Repertory Company in Ventura County, Calif., Davies also works closely with the Kingsmen Shakespeare Company in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Shakespeare has long been a favorite of Davies, who spent many summers with the Georgia Shakespeare Festival, performing many of the Bard’s greatest roles.

“First I fell in love with the sword fighting,” Davies says of Zeffirelli’s 1968 classic version of Romeo and Juliet. “Then I fell in love with his characters and the language. Now it’s his mind that fascinates me. He is not so much a playwright as a metaphysical entity, one who completely understood the mind of man.”

King Lear is a profound example of Shakespeare’s innate grasp of human nature. The aging Lear, facing his mortality, decides to determine who will inherit his wealth and lands by testing the love and devotion of his three daughters. While the two eldest fawn over their father, Cordelia, the youngest, stands mute, claiming that the depth of her love has no words.

Lear’s anger ignites a descending spiral of lies and betrayal, tearing apart family and country.

Director Ray Paolino, associate professor in the theatre and film studies department, is approaching this timeless classic with a keen awareness of its relevance to today’s issues. To Paolino, Lear’s capriciousness is a reflection of the frailty of human nature, of the everyday insanity seen on the evening news.

“We live in a world that constantly strives to be the best,” says Paolino, “but cracks in the façade let out the cruelty that is the seamy underside of human nature.”

This juxtaposition of the sublime and the horrific is reflected in the staging of the play: the aftermath of Lear’s tragic actions reveal the decay and rot beneath the surface of this harsh, warrior environment.

“What does it mean to be civilized?” asks Paolino. “The question is as troublesome today as it was to Shakespeare.”

This production gives UGA theatre students the unique opportunity to work closely with a professional of Davies’s caliber, according to Paolino.

“His presence is a kind of challenge to a room of 28 students,” he says. “Having a seasoned professional set the standard adds a great deal of energy to the company.”

Davies sees the project as an opportunity as well.

“It’s refreshing to work with young actors,” says Davies. “Even after 35 years experience, I feel I get more from them than they do from me.”