User:AndyJones/King Lear

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Cordelia and the Fool[edit]

In the Trevor Nunn production of King Lear, which was shown on PBS and stars Ian McKellen, the play is slightly revised so that the Fool (portrayed by Sylvester McCoy) is hanged on stage, just after Gloucester is captured by Cornwall's men.[1]

Performance history[edit]

Engraving depicting Ludwig Devrient as King Lear, probably from Jean-François Ducis' production

The first recorded performance on December 26, 1606 is the only one known with certainty from Shakespeare's era. The play was revived soon after the theatres re-opened after the 1660 Restoration, and was played in its original form as late as 1675. But the urge to adapt and change that was so liberally applied to Shakespeare's plays in that period eventually settled on Lear as on other works. Nahum Tate produced an adaptation in 1681: he gave the play a happy ending, with Edgar and Cordelia marrying, and Lear restored to kingship. The Fool was eliminated altogether, and Arante, a confidant for Cordelia, was added.[2] This was the version acted by Thomas Betterton, David Garrick, and Edmund Kean, and praised by Samuel Johnson. The play was suppressed in the late 18th and early 19th century by the British government, which disliked the dramatization of a mad monarch at a time when George III was suffering mental impairment.[3] The original text did not return to the London stage until William Charles Macready's production of 1838.[4] Other actors who were famous as King Lear in the nineteenth century were Samuel Phelps and Edwin Booth.

20th Century[edit]

The play is among the most popular of Shakespeare’s works to be staged in the 20th century. The most famous staging may be the 1962 production directed by Peter Brook, with Paul Scofield as Lear and Alec McCowen as The Fool. In a 2004 opinion poll of members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Scofield's Lear was voted as the greatest performance in a Shakespearean play in the history of the RSC [5] and immortalized on film in 1971. The longest Broadway run of King Lear was the 1968 production with Lee J. Cobb as Lear, Stacy Keach as Edmund, Philip Bosco as Kent, and Rene Auberjonois as the Fool. It ran for 72 performances: no other Broadway production of the play has run for as many as 50 performances. A Soviet film adaptation was done by Mosfilm in 1971, directed by Grigori Kozintsev, with black-and-white photography and a score by Shostakovich. The script was based on a translation by Boris Pasternak, and Estonian actor Jüri Järvet played the mad king.

Other famous actors played Lear in the twentieth century.

21st Century[edit]

Michael D Jacobs as King Lear, in a Carmel Shake-speare Festival production at the Forest Theater, Carmel, Ca, 1999

The first great 21st century Lear may be Christopher Plummer, who became the first actor to receive a Tony Award nomination for playing Lear in the 2004 Broadway production at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre.

Ian McKellen (who had previously appeared as Edgar and Kent, winning a Drama Desk Award for the former) was triumphant as Lear in April 2007, with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon. This production was taken on a world tour with a cast that included Romola Garai as Cordelia, Sylvester McCoy as the Fool, Frances Barber as Goneril, Monica Dolan as Regan, William Gaunt as Gloucester, and Jonathan Hyde as Kent. It continued at the New London Theatre, Drury Lane, where it ended its run on 12 January 2008 and netted McKellen a Laurence Olivier Award nomination. The production, which was directed by Trevor Nunn and produced by Phil Cameron and was alternated with The Seagull, was later videotaped and broadcast on Great Performances on PBS, garnering McKellen an Emmy Award nomination.

Other recent Lears:

Adaptations and cultural references[edit]

  • Portions of a radio performance of the play on BBC Radio 3 in the UK were used by John Lennon in The Beatles' song "I Am the Walrus", starting at about the halfway point, but most audible towards the end and during the long fadeout. Lennon added the BBC audio (live as it was being broadcast) during mixing of the track. The character Oswald's exhortation, "bury my body", as well as his lament, "O, untimely death!" (Act IV, Scene VI) were interpreted by fans as further pieces of evidence that band member Paul McCartney was dead.
  • A lake in Watermead Country Park, Leicestershire is named King Lear's Lake, owing to its proximity of the legendary burial tomb of King Leir. A statue in the lake depicts the final scene of Shakespeare's play.
  • The Liverpool based band The Wombats make reference to the play in their song "Lost in the Post."
  • At the beginning of the video game Final Fantasy IX, the play 'I Want To Be Your Canary' played in front of Queen Brahne is heavily inspired from King Lear (the two plays share both the characters' names and the plot).
  • Canadian band The Tragically Hip have a song called "Cordelia" inspired by King Lear on their album Road Apples
  • In the film Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, Mr. Magorium attempts to explain his death to Mahoney by using the words "He dies" from act five.
  • Exiled Theatre performed a prequel to King Lear entitled "Edmund, Son of Gloucester" in 1996.

Adaptations[edit]

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

A number of significant and diverse readings have emerged from eras and societies since the play was first written; evidence of the ability of Shakespeare to encompass many human experiences. The play was poorly received in the 17th century because the theme of fallen royalty was too close to the events of the period; the exile of the court to France. In 1681 Nahum Tate rewrote King Lear to suit a 17th century audience: Tate's The History of King Lear changed Shakespeare's tragedy into a love story with a happy ending. The King of France and the Fool are omitted; Edgar saves Cordelia from ruffians on the heath; Lear defeats the assassins sent to kill him and Cordelia, and Edgar and Cordelia are betrothed in a final scene, where Edgar declares that "Truth and Virtue shall at last succeed."[8]

As society and time changed, especially in the nineteenth century, Shakespeare's tragic ending was reinstalled, first, briefly, by Edmund Kean in 1823, then by William Charles Macready in 1834. Macready removed all traces of Tate in an abridged version of Shakespeare's text in 1838, and Samuel Phelps restored the complete Shakespearean version in 1845.

The only recent production of Tate's version was staged by the Riverside Shakespeare Company in 1985, directed by W. Stuart McDowell, at The Shakespeare Center in New York City.[9]

Critical analysis[edit]

The twentieth century saw a number of diverse and rich readings of the play emerge as a result of the turbulent social changes of the century. A. C. Bradley saw this play as an individual coming to terms with his personality; that Lear was a great man and therefore the play is almost unfathomable.

The Family Drama reading has also become prevalent in the 20th century. King Lear can be read as being about the dynamics in the relationship between parent and children.[10] Key issues include the relationship between Lear and Goneril/Regan, between Lear and Cordelia and the relationship between Gloucester and his sons.

The play has been interpreted by many societies. Communist Russia emphasised the suffering of the common people and the oppressive nature of the monarch in the film Korol Lear (Король Лир 1970).

Lear's suffering as a form of purgatory, within a shifting religious landscape in contemporary England, has also been put forward and has been extended onto other Shakespeare dramas like Hamlet.[11]

Reworkings[edit]

Since the 1950s, there have been various "reworkings" of King Lear. These include:

Novels[edit]

Graphic Novels[edit]

Plays[edit]

  • The play Lear by Edward Bond
  • The play Lear's Daughters by W. T. G. and Elaine Feinstein
  • The play Seven Lears by Howard Barker
  • The play Lear Reloaded by Scot Lahaie
  • The play Aspects of Lear directed by Joseph Timko
  • The Play The Fool, by Christopher Moore, retells the story of King Lear from the perspective of The Black Fool.
  • The Play The History of King Lear by Nahum Tate
  • The Play God's Weep by Dennis Kelly
  • The Play Edmund, Son of Gloucester by Chris Lambert

Films[edit]

Film adaptations[edit]

Opera[edit]

Costantino Finucci (Re Lear), Serena Daolio (Cordelia), Eufemia Tufano (Regana), Rasha Talaat (il Matto), Danilo Formaggia (Edgaro), Mebonia Vladimer (Conte di Gloster), Leone Maria (Gonerilla), Coletta Gianni (Duca di Cornovaglia), Domenico Colaianni (Conte di Kent), Cristian Camilo Navarro Diaz (Edmondo), il Coro Slovacco di Bratislava, l’Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia. Direttore Massimiliano Caldi, regista Francesco Esposito. Coreografie di Domenico Iannone, scene di Nicola Rubertelli, costumi di Maria Carla Ricotti.

Audio[edit]



Notable performers as King Lear[edit]

Charles Hay Cameron as King Lear (1872) / print by A. L. Coburn

Moved from King Lear 15 Oct 11[edit]

A 2008 TV film for Channel 4 and PBS starred Ian McKellen as Lear.


References[edit]

  1. ^ PBS.org
  2. ^ The History of King King Lear Adapted by Nahum Tate after William Shakespeare, Edited by Jack Lynch, (Rutgers University, Newark), Act III, line 140. Tate's King Lear, 1749 edition: online text.
  3. ^ Shakespeare A to Z by Charles Boyce, Dell Publishing, 1990
  4. ^ F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964, Baltimore, Penguin, 1964; pp. 265–66.
  5. ^ Scofield's Lear voted the greatest Shakespeare performance, The Telegraph, 22nd August 2004
  6. ^ "Olivier" by Robert Tanitch, Abbeville Press, 1985
  7. ^ Gielgud: A Theatrical Life 1904–2000 by Jonathan Croall, Continuum 2001
  8. ^ Nahum Tate, The History of King Lear Act V.
  9. ^ "Tate's Lear at Riverside," by Mel Gussow, The New York Times, April 5, 1985, and "King Lear for Optimists," by Howard Kissel, Women's Wear Daily, March 22, 1985.
  10. ^ An Existential Examination of King Lear
  11. ^ Alter, Robert (May 20, 2001), "Just Passing Through: Review of Stephen Greenblatt's 'Hamlet in Purgatory'", New York Times
  12. ^ Carpenter, Humphrey Benjamin Britten - a Biography. London: Faber and Faber 1992, pp 447-8.
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