Discuss the similarties and differences in Peter Brooks and Joacza Savit's productions of King Lear. Include references to reception and underlying messages.

Brook and Savit's production of "King Lear" differ in many ways. This is mainly caused by the times of production, the audience's mind-frame and the message that each producer wanted to deliver. Savit's production took place in 1889 while Brook's production took place in 1962. Each production focused on different aspects of "King Lear". Firstly we will discuss Savit's production.

Joacza Savit was attempting to deliver the message that "King Lear" was a play that "cried out for non-illusionist treatment". This led him to try and create an "Elizabethan rhythm" for the scene shifts. He used an outer and inner curtain, using most of the foreground of the stage for monologues and the background of the stage for setting the scene. The heath was an inner area raised about 3 steps up from the stage on a platform. The platform was medium sized at about seven and a half metres wide, allowing a fair amount of performers to do a scene at once.

"King Lear and the Fool in the Storm" by William D...

18th-century depiction of King Lear mourning over ...

English: Title page of Shakespeare's King Lear (16...

The platform was used to create background movement with characters, which are not necessarily involved in the scene. The acting brings to mind the environment amongst the performers. Thus giving the actors placed further downstage a sense of "surprising awareness of the virtues of the open stage". The audience was confronted with the disjunction of two events on stage at once, scenery upstage and the actor focused events downstage.

Peter Brook's production focuses on the iconography of hell. To achieve this he restricted focus of the play by eliminating such scenes as 4.3, 5.3 and the blinding on Gloucester. He also designed the production himself. The stage was made into a "signifier of emptiness" although not completely bare. Only essential props were used made from rough wood and metal. This...