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King Lear
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Filmed in 1998, this adroit BBC/WGBH-Boston production of William Shakespeare’s King Lear is of particular note for preserving Ian Holm’s celebrated stage performance in the title role. Stellar interpreters of Lear haven’t always been so fortunate. Laurence Olivier was frail and in ill health by the time he was brought before the cameras for a 1984 television adaptation. Paul Scofield was in prime form for the 1971 film version, but his powerful acting was undermined by Peter Brook’s dreary stylized direction. Orson Welles fell victim to television’s infancy in 1953 when he played Lear in an absurdly truncated 73-minute teleplay—complete with boom-mike shadows and wobbly cardboard sets—coincidentally directed by a much younger Peter Brook. When asked about the severely chopped-down script, Welles replied at the time: “The central story will still be there.
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While writing a King Lear essay remember that this is one of the most famous characters created by Shakespeare. What is required in the paper is an interpretation of the character and the tragedy portrayed in the drama. This method is recommended for all types of papers on Shakespeare and other playwrights.
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In Britain, King Lear, in old age, chooses to retire and divide up Britain between his three daughters. However, he declares that they must first be wed before being given the land. He asks his daughters the extent of their love for him. The two oldest, Goneril and Regan, both flatter him with praise and are rewarded generously with land and marriage to the Duke of Albany and the Duke of Cornwall, respectively. Lear's youngest and most beloved daughter, Cordelia, refuses to flatter her father, going only so far as to say that she loves him as much as a daughter should. Lear, unjustly enraged, gives her no land.
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A new production of King Lear is taking a novel approach to the title character, casting a woman in the role. The past few weeks have seen a rash of Shakespearean productions with female cross-gender casting. In Boston, Macbeth is being performed with an all-female cast. There are a number of ways to interpret this phenomenon. Most commonly, productions continue to treat the role as male even though the actor is female. In this Lear, the actor is referred to as “Milady” but retains the title “King,” placing the character in a kind of gender limbo.
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"The Many Faces of King Lear" is made possible in part by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council. To register, call 847-635-1414 or 847-982-9888, press 3. For a complete list of Emeritus classes, course fees, seminars, and events, visit www.oakton.edu/emeritus.
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As in Macbeth terror reaches its utmost height, in King Lear the sense of compassion is exhausted. The principal characters here are not those who act, but those who suffer. We have not in this, as in most tragedies, the picture of a calamity in which the sudden blows of fate seem still to honor the head which they strike, and where the loss is always accompanied by some flattering consolation in the memory of the former possession; but a fall from the highest elevation into the deepest abyss of misery, where humanity is stripped of all external and internal advantages, and given up a prey to naked helplessness.
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King Lear