Geoff Hoyle's LEAR'S SHADOW Extends at The Marsh

The Marsh has announced award-winning actor/playwright Geoff Hoyle's newest solo show Lear's Shadow will extend, with continuing performances through June 27. It may be business-as-usual when great tragedians such as Laurence Olivier, Sir Ian McKellen, and Paul Scofield perform in King Lear, but this time a great clown tackles Shakespeare's masterpiece. Audiences experience King Lear like never before as the Jester (played by Hoyle), recently unemployed, tells his side to Shakespeare's most tragic, cosmic, and human of stories in this poignant solo performance. Lear's Shadow, written in collaboration with and directed by the master of the solo form David Ford, will run Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8pm and Saturdays at 5pm through May 30. Beginning June 4, Lear's Shadow will be performed Thursdays at 8pm and Saturdays at 5pm at The Marsh (1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco). For tickets ($20-$100), the public may visit www.themarsh.org or call 415-282-3055 between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm, Monday through Friday.

Lear's Shadow originally opened at The Marsh in April and was called "Sublime. An astonishing tour de force from a performer who San Francisco is lucky to count as its own," by the San Francisco Examiner.

"Where's the King?/ Contending with the fretful elements/ But who is with him?/None but the fool, who labors to outjest/ His heartstruck injuries" (King Lear, III.i. 15-18). Such is the plight of Hoyle's woeful Jester, who leans on his knack for rhyme and humor to deal with the otherwise dire situation of a master gone mad. An exploration of fear, confusion, and mortality, Lear's Shadow will tap into the complexity of one of Shakespeare's most overlooked characters.

Geoff Hoyle trained with Etienne Decroux in Paris, developing his unique bravura comic style - a combination of court jester, vaudevillian, and English music hall comedian. He made his mark in the Bay Area as the Pickle Family Circus' beloved clown, Mr. Sniff. Later, he created the critically acclaimed Feast of Fools, featuring masked Commedia Dell'Arte characters including the libidinous and elderly Pantalone, Il Dottore, and the prat-falling Arlecchino. His award-winning shows The Convict's Return, Geni(us), The First Hundred Years, and Geezer have been seen in San Francisco, Paris, London, Berlin, Taiwan, New York, England, Russia, and Latvia.

One of the most highly-regarded physical comedy actors in the country, Hoyle has been called "a Bay Area comic treasure" by the Contra Costa Times and a "physical comedy maestro" by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Hoyle created the original Zazu in the Broadway cast of The Lion King. He appeared off-Broadway in Bill Irwin's Mr. Fox and in Tony Kushner's and Maurice Sendak's adaptation of the children's opera Brundibar. He also appears regularly with Teatro Zinzanni. His regional theatre appearances include shows at Seattle Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, and Berkeley Repertory Theatre, with leading roles in Volpone, The Alchemist, The Beaux Stratagem, Endgame, Scapin, Act Without Words and Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead, among others. His last show with The Marsh, Geezer, was met with rave reviews, including a "Wild Applause" rating from the San Francisco Chronicle, which hailed the show as "brilliantly theatrical, funny, and moving."

David Ford, who co-developed and directed Lear's Shadow, has been collaborating on new and unusual theatre for three decades and has been associated with The Marsh for most of that time. The San Francisco press has variously called him the solo performer maven, the monologue maestro, the dean of solo performance, and the solo performers best friend and a week rarely goes by when residents of the Bay Area can not enjoy one of his productions. Collaborators include Geoff Hoyle, Brian Copeland, Charlie Varon, Marilyn Pittman, Rebecca Fisher, Wayne Harris, and Marga Gomez.

Photo credit: David Ford