Word: goneril
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...course, King Lear. But wait. The great lord is called Hidetora, and he speaks in a tongue Will Shakespeare would not have recognized, inhabits a landscape unknown to the Bard, that of 16th century Japan. And Goneril, Regan and Cordelia are here men called Taro, Jiro and Saburo. We are obviously far from the place of this tragic tale's mythic birth and noble retelling, and we are far from the inert reverence of the typical movie adaptation of a classic. Indeed, in Ran (which means "chaos" in Japanese) we venture into a territory where the very word adaptation distorts...
King Lear recounts the title figure's rejection of his youngest daughter, Cordelia, and betrayal by his other two daughters, Goneril and Regan. An interrelated sub-plot tells how the bastard Edmund discredits his legitimate brother Edgar and claims the lands of their father, Duke of Gloucester. Simple stories, but Shelley called this play, "the most perfect specimen of dramatic poetry existing in the world...
Among the evil characters, the bastard Edmund (Christopher McCann) most convincingly reveals and revels in malice. As Goneril, Kirsten Girous, gives the only unsatisfactory performance in the cast. (It is necessary not to have one's hand covering one's face at least half the time one is on stage, in order for the gesture to have a dramatic impact...
...After seeing the unbelievably bovine face of Regan, played by Galina Volchek, who seems dementedly swollen with her own evil, any other face for the wicked sister is impossible to imagine. By contrast, Edmund (Regimantas Adomaitis) oozes with so much dark sexuality that it's no wonder Regan and Goneril are eventually destroyed by their unrequited lust for him. The fool is aptly played by Otar Dal who with his frail, bony body and shorn head bears a haunting resemblance to a concentration camp victim...
...heroic, each line he utters a precious gift from the depleting stock of his time. But there are reasons beyond enlightened sentimentality to treasure this Lear. To support him Olivier has assembled an actors' aristocracy: Diana Rigg and Dorothy Tutin as Lear's treacherous daughters Regan and Goneril, Colin Blakely as the faithful Kent, John Hurt as Lear's Fool, Leo McKern as old Gloucester, David Threlfall (Smike in the R.S.C.'s Nicholas Nickleby) as Gloucester's loving son Edgar. Olivier has pruned the text significantly but fairly, tightening the action like a noose...