Probably the most admired play by Shakespeare about what I will call insanity, male insanity, real or faked. But to understand at least half of it you have to start from the beginning and the beginning is an absurd situation in which an old King decides to share his kingdom between his three daughters provided they describe their love for him. Vain old man, tyrannical, and probably seriously mentally disturbed, probably because of his long reign since he is supposed to be over eighty. I read that play when I was fourteen and must have traumatized by it since it is still just as disturbing as the first time.
Three is the number of evil in Shakespeare, so three daughters is evil and evil it is since the third one, the youngest, Cordelia, refuses to declare her love for her father and to her father because love is fake when you cast it in words. He disinherits her and refuses to provide her with any dowry. She has to marry the first man who wants her without a penny. The King of France accepts her. So King Lear's kingdom is cut in two only and the condition is that on an alternating basis the two sisters, Goneril and Regan, have to host the old king and the hundred knights that are entertaining him for a month.
The old king is capricious, whimsical and tyrannical. So it does not work and the two sisters have arranged it not to work anyway. So one night he leaves alone, in fact only with his Fool, and on the heath in a storm they come across Kent and later Edgar playing a deranged character, called Tom, disguised as a mad man, and in this production half naked, though we will never see the clothed bottom half. Shakespeare had indicated that King Lear tore his clothes off and ended naked, but it is rare this character does what the stage-directions say. I have seen many solutions, once the King, other times the Fool generally played by a young actor, so why not Edgar-Tom? From there we move into a confused situation. Cordelia and the King of France arrive in Dover to rescue King Lear but the battle does not work and Cordelia, King Lear and others end up prisoners.
Shakespeare had invested another situation in the play from the very start. Gloster had two sons, a legitimate one and a half-blood illegitimate one. The illegitimate Edmund maneuvers between the two sisters Goneril and Regan, seducing them both, and he manipulates his father who ends up banning his legitimate son Edgar. This Edgar is the one playing the mad man on the heath. His father had kept some connection with King Lear and he is accused by Goneril and her husband the Duke of Albany of treason and Albany rips off his eyes but after the first eye some servants intervene to stop Albany who will prevail but he is fatally wounded and he dies after taking the second eye off.
So Edgar reappeared on the heath as a mad man and then his blind father Gloster is led to the heath. His legitimate son takes care of him, satisfies his desire to die by misleading him to what is described as a cliff, but is not, and he falls to the earth. Then Edgar reclaims his identity and takes care of his father. That's when a messenger comes along from one sister to the other. He is killed and the letter he carries reveals that one sister was planning to have the other killed.
After the scene of the meeting of King Lear and Cordelia in her camp before the battle, we move to the victorious camp of the two sisters, with only one husband, the Duke of Cornwall who is a rather meek person, and Edmund. Edgar, disguised as some king of pilgrim arrives and delivers the recuperated letter of his wife or her sister to Cornwall who discovers the duplicity of his wife with Edmund and her sister. The confrontation of Cornwall and the sisters is in the process of becoming difficult when Edgar reappears with a mask and dressed like a knight. He challenges his half brother Edmund and he wounds him mortally. Before dying he speaks and Edgar reveals himself. The two sisters disappear and we will soon learn Goneril has poisoned Regan and then has stabbed herself. It is then Edmund dies. These three deaths are off stage. But then King Lear who had regained some sanity before being taken prisoner arrives carrying Cordelia who had been hanged. Edmund had instructed some servant to do it. And King Lear dies of sorrow in front of us, cajoling his dead daughter.
Only two survivors, the Duke of Cornwall and Edgar Earl of Gloster. The Shakespearian cycle is complete: all evil protagonists have been destroyed. But the originality here is that the three weird sisters are three real sisters and they really hate one another. The study of the three sisters and their various degrees of ambition, love and perversity could be illuminating. Cordelia would appear as probably the truest and the most generous but it is her stubbornness that caused the drama, though the great culprit is the old King Lear.
The second originality is of course the three deranged characters, three males this time, King Lear who is really deranged, his Fool who is a professional mad man and Edgar who plays the mad man to remain incognito. But Shakespeare takes advantage of this situation to literally liberate his poetic style to produce a phenomenal language that is probably one of the best linguistic impersonation of insanity. In this production these three characters are performed by three actors who really transcend this insanity to make it look and sound insane. Some other actors are quite good too, like Gloster in his blindness. [...]
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
Three is the number of evil in Shakespeare, so three daughters is evil and evil it is since the third one, the youngest, Cordelia, refuses to declare her love for her father and to her father because love is fake when you cast it in words. He disinherits her and refuses to provide her with any dowry. She has to marry the first man who wants her without a penny. The King of France accepts her. So King Lear's kingdom is cut in two only and the condition is that on an alternating basis the two sisters, Goneril and Regan, have to host the old king and the hundred knights that are entertaining him for a month.
The old king is capricious, whimsical and tyrannical. So it does not work and the two sisters have arranged it not to work anyway. So one night he leaves alone, in fact only with his Fool, and on the heath in a storm they come across Kent and later Edgar playing a deranged character, called Tom, disguised as a mad man, and in this production half naked, though we will never see the clothed bottom half. Shakespeare had indicated that King Lear tore his clothes off and ended naked, but it is rare this character does what the stage-directions say. I have seen many solutions, once the King, other times the Fool generally played by a young actor, so why not Edgar-Tom? From there we move into a confused situation. Cordelia and the King of France arrive in Dover to rescue King Lear but the battle does not work and Cordelia, King Lear and others end up prisoners.
Shakespeare had invested another situation in the play from the very start. Gloster had two sons, a legitimate one and a half-blood illegitimate one. The illegitimate Edmund maneuvers between the two sisters Goneril and Regan, seducing them both, and he manipulates his father who ends up banning his legitimate son Edgar. This Edgar is the one playing the mad man on the heath. His father had kept some connection with King Lear and he is accused by Goneril and her husband the Duke of Albany of treason and Albany rips off his eyes but after the first eye some servants intervene to stop Albany who will prevail but he is fatally wounded and he dies after taking the second eye off.
So Edgar reappeared on the heath as a mad man and then his blind father Gloster is led to the heath. His legitimate son takes care of him, satisfies his desire to die by misleading him to what is described as a cliff, but is not, and he falls to the earth. Then Edgar reclaims his identity and takes care of his father. That's when a messenger comes along from one sister to the other. He is killed and the letter he carries reveals that one sister was planning to have the other killed.
After the scene of the meeting of King Lear and Cordelia in her camp before the battle, we move to the victorious camp of the two sisters, with only one husband, the Duke of Cornwall who is a rather meek person, and Edmund. Edgar, disguised as some king of pilgrim arrives and delivers the recuperated letter of his wife or her sister to Cornwall who discovers the duplicity of his wife with Edmund and her sister. The confrontation of Cornwall and the sisters is in the process of becoming difficult when Edgar reappears with a mask and dressed like a knight. He challenges his half brother Edmund and he wounds him mortally. Before dying he speaks and Edgar reveals himself. The two sisters disappear and we will soon learn Goneril has poisoned Regan and then has stabbed herself. It is then Edmund dies. These three deaths are off stage. But then King Lear who had regained some sanity before being taken prisoner arrives carrying Cordelia who had been hanged. Edmund had instructed some servant to do it. And King Lear dies of sorrow in front of us, cajoling his dead daughter.
Only two survivors, the Duke of Cornwall and Edgar Earl of Gloster. The Shakespearian cycle is complete: all evil protagonists have been destroyed. But the originality here is that the three weird sisters are three real sisters and they really hate one another. The study of the three sisters and their various degrees of ambition, love and perversity could be illuminating. Cordelia would appear as probably the truest and the most generous but it is her stubbornness that caused the drama, though the great culprit is the old King Lear.
The second originality is of course the three deranged characters, three males this time, King Lear who is really deranged, his Fool who is a professional mad man and Edgar who plays the mad man to remain incognito. But Shakespeare takes advantage of this situation to literally liberate his poetic style to produce a phenomenal language that is probably one of the best linguistic impersonation of insanity. In this production these three characters are performed by three actors who really transcend this insanity to make it look and sound insane. Some other actors are quite good too, like Gloster in his blindness. [...]
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU