King’s College history professor Brian Pavlac has the title role in the theatre department’s production of ‘King Lear.’

King’s College history professor Brian Pavlac has the title role in the theatre department’s production of ‘King Lear.’

Production is college’s 70th Shakespeare offering

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<p>King Lear’s daughters Regan, Cordelia and Goneril are portrayed by Theodora Abah of Lawrencevilla, Ga.; Mikayla Acree of Parsippany, N.J., and Ashley Surdovel of Topton, Berks County.</p>

King Lear’s daughters Regan, Cordelia and Goneril are portrayed by Theodora Abah of Lawrencevilla, Ga.; Mikayla Acree of Parsippany, N.J., and Ashley Surdovel of Topton, Berks County.

There’s a scene in “King Lear” when the king and his fool, or jester, are roaming a forbidding landscape in a terrible storm.

The storm is so wild, it has “oak-cleaving thunderbolts” — and the fool is afraid.

“But when he realizes that Lear is frightened, too, he forgets his own fear and tries to comfort the king,” said Talia Johnson, from Nazareth, Pa., who portrays the fool in a King’s College production of the Shakespeare tragedy. “The fool is very loyal, and it’s really touching.”

You’ll find several loyal characters in this show, which opens Feb. 20 in the George P. Maffei II Theatre, along with plenty of disloyal ones, including Lear’s famously false daughters, Regan and Goneril, who would probably be charged with elder abuse if the story took place in modern times.

Oh, but this story takes place in a harsh, medieval type of climate, a place where the Duke of Gloucester, for example, is punished by the forcible loss of his eyesight.

“There are lots of ways to maim a person,” said Michael Little, associate professor of English, who plays Gloucester. “But to gouge somebody’s eyes is pretty horrific.”

Gloucester isn’t the only character who suffers in this play, which director Dave Reynolds describes as “one of William Shakespeare’s most tragic.”

You’ve got Lear descending into madness when he realizes he shouldn’t have given his kingdom away. “He knows he’s losing it; he gets it back again by the end,” said history professor Brian Pavlac, who plays the king.

You’ve got Edgar, the Duke of Gloucester’s misjudged son, who’s on the lam and fearing for his life.

And, you’ve Lear’s his one dutiful daughter, Cordelia, who meets a cruel fate after she leads an army to fight for her father.

“Everything she’s doing is to get her father back,” said Mikayla Acree, of Parsippany, N.J., who plays Cordelia.

This production of “King Lear” is the 70th Shakespeare production King’s College has offered to local audiences, and in addition to the shows that are open to the general public, at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 20-22 and 2 p.m. on Feb. 23, the college has four matinees for high school students.

“We’re very, very proud of bringing Shakespeare to high school audiences,” said Reynolds, the director, adding that seeing a show “not on TV, but live on stage” is likely to help young people appreciate the Bard.

He wasn’t a Shakespeare fan himself, he said, until he became involved with a previous King’s College production of “King Lear,” years ago when he was a student.

“It was the show that taught me to love Shakespeare,” he said.

Remembering that he played an attendant, Reynolds said that similar roles of messengers and flag bearers might seem small to the casual observer, but they’re not unimportant.

“No one person on stage is more important than anyone else,” he said. “We all have a part in telling the story.”

In that production, as in this current one, faculty members shared the stage with students.

“It was just a revelation to me to get to make art with professors,” Reynolds said. “It’s a wonderful passing down of the art.”

Rounding out the cast are Ashley Surdovel as Goneril, Theodora Abah as Regan, Saroush Gharaui as the King of Fance; Chip Lemheney as the Duke of Albany; Sean McKeown as the Earl of Kent; Gabriel Gillespie as Edgar; Ryan Colonna as the Duke of Burgundy, Seth Higgins as the Duke of Cornwall, Jarrett Gabriel as Edmund, John Barrera as Oswald, Leah Peters as the doctor, and Benton Smith, Annarose McLaughlin and Ellie Freeman each having several roles.