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The audience hears the engine revving off stage. King Lear, an
immediately modern interpretation of Bill Shakespeare's masterpiece, stars Frank
Gallacher as the British king and the chariot of choice is a big, black Jaguar
S-TYPE V8.
The Jaguar saloon darts from stage left and stops abruptly at centre stage.
Its V8 engine returns to a quiet idle as the audience settles back in time with
the dialog. The King's bodyguard chauffer does indeed drive a Jaguar, and he
drives it hard.
Presented by the Melbourne Theatre Company, King Lear opened July 6
and will run until August 13 at The Merlyn Theatre. Introducing the 2005-model
Jaguar on stage gives King Lear gritty realism almost 400 years after
Shakespeare penned the family-torn tragedy.
"I never expected the S-TYPE would leap onto the stage like it does," said
Jaguar Marketing Manager Louise Cassidy. "The Melbourne Theatre Company rang me
a few months ago with the idea of using a Jaguar in King Lear. English king and
an English car make sense, but Shakespeare and the black S-TYPE isn't what
anyone would expect."
Putting the Jaguar on stage is not without its own technical dramas. The
Jaguar's headlights had to be re-aimed so they didn't blind the audience and
there was some worry about the automatic door locks. In the end, the Jag has
performed flawlessly while the plot surrounding it has been a total tragedy, as
Shakespeare intended.
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