Hollywood legend Frank Langella stars in an epic new staging of Shakespeare's King Lear

“The Minerva is a space that can do epic,” says Innes Hopkins, who has previously worked with Chichester’s associate director Angus Jackson on festival productions of Bingo and Wallenstein, as well as this year’s aforementioned Neville’s Island and the touring West End hit Goodnight Mister Tom.

“We learned with Bingo that there’s quite a lot of depth to the stage in the Minerva, so we can play with scale. With the audience so amazingly close, the sword fights should have a visceral quality, which may slightly alarm the people sitting in the front row!”

The biggest challenge comes from Shakespeare’s epic story moving effortlessly from court to countryside in the space of a scene change.

“With Neville’s Island, it was a single location, which asks for naturalism, because the comedy comes out of the situation being as real as possible,” he says.

“With King Lear we have 18 scenes spanning the court to the cliffs of Dover. You can’t offer a naturalistic response to it.

“It also needs to move at a much greater pace through the piece, so the demands were wholly different.

“King Lear is a production you hope you will get to design at some point in your career. The epic scale of the show is thrilling to work with.”

Creating the right atmosphere

Working in collaboration with Jackson on the production, which stars Hollywood legend Frank Langella, his solution was to create an arena for the story, with a very solid foundation.

“It’s important to get a sense of atmosphere and texture,” says Innes Hopkins, who adds that both he and Jackson like to use real materials.

“There’s a similarity between bringing real trees, shingle and water into Neville’s Island, and our grounding for King Lear, which has a real stone floor.”

It’s a device the pair used previously in Wallenstein, which had a positive effect on the audience.

“It’s lovely to see 30 members of the audience in the interval touching it to see if it is real,” laughs Innes Hopkins.

“We’ve got real swords, so hopefully in the fight scenes we will see little sparks fly up when the metal hits the stone.”

This version of King Lear may not be going on tour but Innes Hopkins still had to create a set which could move between two very different locations.

The show starts out on the Minerva Theatre’s thrust space for the next month, before moving to Brooklyn’s Academy Of Music, which has a traditional proscenium arch stage.

“When I first heard Lear was going to two spaces, I did have a certain trepidation about how the design would work,” admits Innes Hopkins.

“But both venues share slightly more qualities than would first appear.

“The logistics of touring would mean we couldn’t have a real stone floor. In some ways designing for a 12-venue tour is a bigger challenge than just two.”

Innes Hopkins has already seen the cast at work, having been present at the initial read-through of the script round the table with Langella.

“There is a different energy in the production of every show,” he says.

“Having an actor of Frank Langella’s calibre in the Minerva will be a very memorable thing for all of us.

“It’s a terrifying prospect for any actor, however established and experienced they are, to undertake Lear.

“He showed a little bit of the power and control he has in the read-through. He will be extraordinary onstage. It is a very supportive cast and we are all looking forward to it.”