King Lear
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Summary:
The story of King Lear, an aging monarch who is headstrong old man who is blind to his weaknesses, decides to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters, according to which one recites the best declaration of love. Goneril and Regan who are the selfish daughters of Lear who pretend to love him but later treat him cruelly. Cordelia who is the loyal and unselfish daughter of Lear. He disowns her after confusing her honesty with insolence. Edgar is Gloucester loyal son and heir and Edmund is Gloucester evil bastard son. At first the family appear to be loving and caring but this could not be further from the truth. As the characters unfold we find greed, betrayal, lust for power, and cruelty. In other words, they are anything but normal and caring. The end of the play ends in death everywhere. Regan dies after being poisoned by Goneril. Goneril stabs herself to death. Edgar reveals his true identity to his father, but the old man dies. Mortally wounded, Edmund becomes remorseful and countermands his order to hang Cordelia. But it is too late, and Cordelia dies. Lear, now a broken man, falls upon Cordelia and also dies. |
Character Profiles
King Lear
Lear is the King of Britain and is the protagonist of the play. Lear is used to relishing total supremacy and to being privileged, and he does not react nor accept being opposed or challenged. At the start of the play, his principles are particularly hollow and he ranks the appearance of love over definite devotion and desires to uphold the authority of a king while divesting himself of the obligation. Yet, he stimulates faithfulness in subjects such as Gloucester, Kent, Cordelia, and Edgar, all of whom risk their lives for him. |
Cordeila
Cordeila is Lear’s youngest daughter, she is disowned by her father for declining to compliment him. Cordelia is apprehended in very high respect by all of the moral characters in the play, the king of France marries her for her virtue alone, overlooking her absence of dowry. She remains faithful to Lear in spite of his unkindness towards her, forgives him, and shows a slight and patient nature even toward her wicked sisters, Goneril and Regan. Regardless of her obvious virtues, Cordelia’s reticence makes her incentives testing to read, as in her snub to state her love for her father at the start of the play. |
Goneril
Goneril is Lear’s brutal oldest daughter and the wife of the duke of Albany. Goneril is envious, unfaithful, and unprincipled. This is something that strikes me as odd, due to the fact that in Shakespeare’s time aggressiveness was a quality that was breaking the norm with a female character. Goneril challenges Lear’s power, shamelessly initiates an affair with Edmund, and grasps military power away from her husband. She is everything that a parent doesn’t want in their child, but is everything Goneril is. |
Regan
Regan is Lear’s middle daughter and the wife of the duke of Cornwall. Regan is as callous as Goneril and as hostile in all the same ways. But sometimes it comes across as though that Regan is Gonerils sidekick, but what is very evident in the play is that they are both as brutal as each other, and will stop at nothing to get what they want. When they are not urging each other on to additional actions of brutality, they resentfully contend for the same man, Edmund. |
Gloucester
Gloucester is a noble and devoted man to King Lear. The first and most important thing we realize is that Gloucester has having fathered a bastard son, Edmund. His destiny is in many ways parallel to that of Lear: he underestimates which of his children to trust. He appears weak and incompetent in the early acts, when he is powerless to stop Lear from being turned out of his own house, but he later establishes that he is also proficient of great courage. |
Edgar
Edgar is Gloucester’s older, legitimate son. Edgar plays numerous different roles, preliminarily as a naive fool easily deceived by his brother, then assuming a disguise as a mad beggar to avoid his father’s men, then taking his impersonation further to help Lear and Gloucester, and finally appearing as an armored winner to punish his brother’s disloyalty. Edgar’s tendency for disguises and impersonations makes it hard to distinguish him efficiently, because you never know who is being portrayed, and which of his ‘roles’ shows his true colors. |
Edmund
Edmund is Gloucester’s younger, illegitimate son. Edmund resents his status as a ‘bastard’ and schemes to usurp Gloucester’s title and assets from Edgar. He is without a doubt a challenging character, succeeding in almost all of his schemes and causing damage upon almost all of the other characters. He is evil, manipulative and heartless, but at the end of the play, you could argue that he is also remorseful. |
Themes
Family
When it comes down to it, family relationships, especially those between fathers and children, are at the center of the play. (Characters who are mothers, as several critics have pointed out, are noticeably absent in King Lear but there's plenty of talk about moms in this play.) Lear is not only a king, he's also a family patriarch whose plans to divvy up his kingdom among his daughters backfires, causing a civil war that gets played out as a large scale family crisis. Lear's family isn't the only dysfunctional crew in the play – the drama between Gloucester and his sons heightens the sense that King Lear is a decidedly domestic tragedy.
Power
Much like Shakespeare's famous history plays, King Lear offers a meditation on kingship and power or, more accurately, the loss of power. After retiring and divvying up his kingdom among his ungrateful daughters, Lear discovers what it's like to lose the power and authority that come with the responsibilities of active rule. In addition to being a monarch, King Lear is also a family patriarch and Shakespeare asks us to consider the similarities between a father's relationship with his children and a king's relationship with his subjects.
Justice
The excessive cruelty and portrayal of human suffering in the play make the world seem terribly unjust. Throughout King Lear, characters constantly appeal to the gods for aid but are rarely answered. The play suggests that, either the gods do not exist, or they are unimaginably cruel. King Lear seems to argue that it is up to human beings to administer justice in this world.
Gender
In King Lear, women are often seen as emasculating, disloyal, promiscuous, and the root of all the problems in the world. King Lear in particular has serious issues with women – when his daughters, Goneril and Regan, betray him, he begins a diatribe against women, particularly female sexuality, that echoes throughout the play.
Loyalty
In the harsh world of King Lear, loyalty is rare. Surviving in an unstable political situation means that many people focus on the bottom line: saving their own skins. But there are some characters in the play who demonstrate extraordinary loyalty, such as Kent and Cordelia. The play celebrates this virtue, but it also shows that it can be dangerous. Loyalty is not appreciated, but rather ignored. In some cases, loyalty means death, and in all cases, it means suffering.
Compassion and Forgiveness
King Lear is an incredibly cruel play, and many of the characters are absolutely pitiless. Yet a few characters show extraordinary sympathy towards others' suffering. The human capacity to feel for others survives even the most desperate of moments. Yet what we see in Lear is that compassion is usually based on some sort of obligation – such as loyalty or family ties. Interestingly, these loyalties and these ties are the same causes of the extensive treachery displayed in King Lear.
When it comes down to it, family relationships, especially those between fathers and children, are at the center of the play. (Characters who are mothers, as several critics have pointed out, are noticeably absent in King Lear but there's plenty of talk about moms in this play.) Lear is not only a king, he's also a family patriarch whose plans to divvy up his kingdom among his daughters backfires, causing a civil war that gets played out as a large scale family crisis. Lear's family isn't the only dysfunctional crew in the play – the drama between Gloucester and his sons heightens the sense that King Lear is a decidedly domestic tragedy.
Power
Much like Shakespeare's famous history plays, King Lear offers a meditation on kingship and power or, more accurately, the loss of power. After retiring and divvying up his kingdom among his ungrateful daughters, Lear discovers what it's like to lose the power and authority that come with the responsibilities of active rule. In addition to being a monarch, King Lear is also a family patriarch and Shakespeare asks us to consider the similarities between a father's relationship with his children and a king's relationship with his subjects.
Justice
The excessive cruelty and portrayal of human suffering in the play make the world seem terribly unjust. Throughout King Lear, characters constantly appeal to the gods for aid but are rarely answered. The play suggests that, either the gods do not exist, or they are unimaginably cruel. King Lear seems to argue that it is up to human beings to administer justice in this world.
Gender
In King Lear, women are often seen as emasculating, disloyal, promiscuous, and the root of all the problems in the world. King Lear in particular has serious issues with women – when his daughters, Goneril and Regan, betray him, he begins a diatribe against women, particularly female sexuality, that echoes throughout the play.
Loyalty
In the harsh world of King Lear, loyalty is rare. Surviving in an unstable political situation means that many people focus on the bottom line: saving their own skins. But there are some characters in the play who demonstrate extraordinary loyalty, such as Kent and Cordelia. The play celebrates this virtue, but it also shows that it can be dangerous. Loyalty is not appreciated, but rather ignored. In some cases, loyalty means death, and in all cases, it means suffering.
Compassion and Forgiveness
King Lear is an incredibly cruel play, and many of the characters are absolutely pitiless. Yet a few characters show extraordinary sympathy towards others' suffering. The human capacity to feel for others survives even the most desperate of moments. Yet what we see in Lear is that compassion is usually based on some sort of obligation – such as loyalty or family ties. Interestingly, these loyalties and these ties are the same causes of the extensive treachery displayed in King Lear.
Character Analysis
Cordeila
Cordelia’s leading characteristics are devotion, compassion, exquisiteness, and morality. Goodness to a fault, perhaps. She is differentiated throughout the play with Goneril and Regan, who are neither truthful nor adoring, and who manipulate their father for their own ends. By declining to take part in Lear’s love test at the beginning of the play, Cordelia establishes herself as a source of virtue, and the clear genuineness of her love for Lear makes clear the degree of the king’s mistake in banishing her. For most of the middle section of the play, she is offstage, but as we detect the plunders of Goneril and Regan and watch Lear’s descent into insanity, Cordelia is certainly not far from the audience’s thoughts, and her loveliness is venerably defined in religious terms. Certainly, tales of her arrival to Britain begin to surface almost immediately, and once she lands at Dover, the action of the play begins to move toward her, as all the characters converge on the coast. Cordelia’s reunion with Lear marks the new order in the kingdom and the victory of love and forgiveness over hatred and malice. This brief instant of familial contentment makes the overwhelming finale of King Lear that much harsher, as Cordelia, the epitome of compassion and virtue, becomes a literal detriment to the cruelty of a seemingly unfair world.
Goneril
Goneril is one of Lear's malicious daughters. After Lear gives her half his lands, she promptly deceives him and doesn't shed a tear when Lear is enforced to roam, homeless and unprotected to the elements of nature. Because Goneril ends up doing such immoral things – including poisoning her own sister over an evil womanizer – it's easy to just label her "the wicked daughter" and be done. Goneril is more complex than that, especially when you argue that they start out with good reason to be upset with Lear. Of course, they end up taking their feelings to an unforgivable extreme, but their initial reaction is worth exploring. At the end of the first scene, Goneril isn't just cackling over how they're going to deal with their father; they're both legitimately worried about the King's irrational behavior. After Lear comes to live with Goneril her heartless nature is shown rapidly, from her manipulating her servants to discomfort him and his men, to her writing to her sister to hold 'her very cause' she is pure evil. Lear prays to the gods that she won't be able to have children, because what sort of a mother would a woman this cruel to everyone she 'should' love be. The next scene (Act 2, Scene 2) is the turning point, Goneril is ruthless in her attempt to get rid of their father's knights. After that, there's cheating on her husband, plotting to murder her husband, and killing her sister. After all of this there's a strange sense of justice in her suicide, no-one that cruel and evil should live such a sacred life . What makes her kill herself is what finally shows her humanity, guilt. She feels guilty about poisoning Regan, you could argue that she loved her through this emotion. In contrast she could have killed herself could be down to cowardliness, that she would rather die than apologize. Goneril is a heartless, cruel, pure evil character, which I am going to develop and explore to deliver as powerfully as i can.
Performance - Monologue
Instead of doing a performance which involves dialogue between other characters, i will be doing two contrasting monologues in the performance. I have decided that the two characters which I will be contrasting are going to be Cordeila and Goneril. This is because they both hold powerful traits of purity/ innocence (Cordeila) and evilness and cruelty (Goneril). I have decided that for Cordeila's monologue I will be doing her last one before she dies, this is because it holds sadness and tragedy whereas Goneril's monologue will be in the middle of the play where she is at the highest of her cruelty. I am going to further explore both characters to help me understand and perform them better.
Cordeila Monologue
The first monologue I chose is Cordelia's final monologue, when she finds her father and he is unconscious, but she thinks he is dying. It's a very emotionally powerful monologue, that conveys sadness, sympathy, anger and many more. This is the resolution we wanted for Cordelia and her father Lear to meet, but this is not the way we wanted the 'happy ending' to happen. It effects us a the audience angrily, on Cordelia's behalf, she wanted to find her father for so long, but the way she does it, is so very sad. I chose this monologue also because I think I can express myself powerfully, it also contrasts the other monologue which I am going to do, Goneril's. They are two completely different worlds apart, and I am going to show that difference.
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After choosing the monologue which I was going to learn and perform, I decided to go onto spark notes to find out exactly what the monologue meant. I did this to help me act it out better, because if you know what something means, you can show it better with more clarity and that is what I wanted to do. The line I struggled with before I went onto spark notes was 'Poor Perdu', which I originally thought meant poor Lear, but after analyzing spark notes, it actually means 'poor lost soul'. The difference between the deliverance of what I thought it meant, and what it actually means are two very different things. Its proof of how important it is to know what something is, in order to show it.
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Goneril Monologue
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When choosing Goneril's monologue I wanted one that showed her at her highest and most meanest cruelty, and contrasting with Cordelia's innocent and sad one. The monologue I then chose was when she gets power and dominance from her father, and he decides to live with her. She is vindictive and manipulative towards her servants and Lear's men. She is without a doubt the coldest and evilest to her father who she diminishes and inferiors. Performing this would show so many dynamics, through posture, facial expression, tone, style etc. It would be amazing to watch, if done well, which I want to do.
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I again went onto spark notes to find out exactly what the monologue was about and meant, to help me understand it better and perform it clearer. Whilst reading the spark notes, it helped me clarify mistakes I made through my interpretations, for example; 'Put on what weary negligence you please', at first I thought it meant be neglectful towards Lear. But spark notes analysis says 'Be as lazy and neglectful as you like around him', even though it is very similar to what I thought, it is not exactly. That is the differentiation that spark notes has given me throughout the monologue, making me understand it better.
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Scenes
Due to there only being four people in the play, we couldn't actually do the entire play. So we decided to edit the majority out and only do a section. We decided to include characters such as; Gloucester, Edgar, Edmund, Cornwall, Regan, Goneril and Cordelia. The majority of the roles will be multi-roles. The ironic part of this is that no-one is playing Lear in his own play. But will be mentioned on many occasions, overshadowing the drama. We have given each scene a name that concludes of describes the scene to come. They will also be the titles which will be mentions in between the scenes, during the still images which we have included to summarize of show a glimpse of the scene to come.
1. The Two Faces of Edmund
Karamjit and Chloe (Gloucester and Edmund)
2. The Scheme of the Betrayer
Chloe and Nicole (Edmund and Edgar)
3. The Survival of the Legitimate Son
Nicole (Edgar)
4. The Calm before the Storm
Chloe and Nicole (Edmund and Cornwall)
5. The Wrath of Goneril
Hamdi (Goneril)
6. The Blinding of Gloucester
Karamit, Chloe and Nicole (Gloucester, Regan and Cornwall)
7. The Suicide Attempt
Karamjit and Nicole (Gloucester and Edgar)
8. The Triumph of Good over Evil
Chloe and Nicole (Edmund and Edgar)
9. The Reunion of Cordelia and her Father
Hamdi and Karamjit (Cordelia and Lear)
Karamjit and Chloe (Gloucester and Edmund)
2. The Scheme of the Betrayer
Chloe and Nicole (Edmund and Edgar)
3. The Survival of the Legitimate Son
Nicole (Edgar)
4. The Calm before the Storm
Chloe and Nicole (Edmund and Cornwall)
5. The Wrath of Goneril
Hamdi (Goneril)
6. The Blinding of Gloucester
Karamit, Chloe and Nicole (Gloucester, Regan and Cornwall)
7. The Suicide Attempt
Karamjit and Nicole (Gloucester and Edgar)
8. The Triumph of Good over Evil
Chloe and Nicole (Edmund and Edgar)
9. The Reunion of Cordelia and her Father
Hamdi and Karamjit (Cordelia and Lear)
Evaluation of Development
First Time Performed - MovementI have decided to analyse the improvements of 'Poor Tom' character. When first watching the way in which the actress movement its very robotic, moving only up and down, and not showing the words through her body and movement. Its all very boring and a little dull. The words seem to show drama, but they are not conveyed through the actresses movement and body posture. To improve she defiantly needs to move, exaggerate her words and create empathy
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First Time Performed - Deliverance of LinesThe first time the actress delivered her lines as 'Poor Tom', what she was saying was excellent, but the way in which she was saying it was boring. The pronunciation of the words, was almost natural, but she was playing a beggar not a royal and she was too posh and well pronounced, contradicting her characters background and history. There was not empathy in the words, she was very mono-toned throughout the deliverance. To improve she could have some sort of an accent to show a lower class status.
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Second Time Performed - MovementThe second time in which the actress performed her 'Poor Tom' monologue her movement changed considerably. She moved with a beat and purpose, she exaggerated her facial expressions and hand gestures, showing a realistic characteristics. When delivering on of her lines, she moved rapidly from one side to another, that caught me off guard in a good way. It showed some dynamic and excited me as the audience, which I think was successful.
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Second Time Performed - Deliverance of LinesThe second time she delivered her lines, there was a great and obvious change, being her accent. It sounded like a character from 'Billy Elliot', which was good due to their low class status and poor background, which poor Tom holds. She said her lines with more clarity and empathy. She exaggerated on words that fit the action which she was doing. Poor Tom almost came to life whilst watching her re-perform her monologue, it was more believable and quite frankly a lot better.
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Set Design
When discussing our set design, we planned on doing many different things like, created a army backdrop on stage, created rubble and making the stage messy. But at the we didn't do any of these things. I think its purely down to the fact that time ran out and we could not to it in time. The stage would have looked amazing had we created a stylized set design, with props, dimension etc. This is why time management, and a rehearsal schedule are very important. It makes getting things done more planned and set in stone. We wanted to create a army/war styled set because we wanted the set design to echo the themes of feud/fighting/confrontation, we wanted it to symbolize something cleverly, and had we done it, I think it would have been very successful and created an impact throughout the performance.
Costume Design
When deciding what to do for costume design we wanted to put our own little twist on it, like modernizing it. We wanted the costume to contrast the time/setting of the play. We thought of having leather jackets as the reoccurring costume piece between us. The connotations of a leather jacket are dominance, power, intimidation, hardcore. We wanted to establish these themes throughout all the characters but add other piece, like a tiara to establish royalty for the princesses. For Goneril I would add a color like red, to connote danger/evil. In contrast with Cordelia which I would add white to show innocence/purity. The costume piece which I will add on have to be easy and quick to put on so that I am in and out of the scenes. I think this idea of modernization within the costumes will work very well.
Unit 19: Principles of Acting - Shakespeare (King Lear)
Evaluation
I feel as though the performance was very successful in delivering a Shakespeare play. The way it was constructed made sense, which I didn’t think would happen. The audiences response to the play was phenomenal, the truly loved the performance, and to me as the actor is amazing to have feedback like that. Out of all the performances I have ever done this was by far the most nerve-racking on of all. Mainly due to it being the last, and because it’s nothing like anything I have ever done. It’s Shakespeare. His language is advanced and hard to conquer, as an acting the way in which you deliver it will impact the audience’s response. You have to understand Shakespeare, for an audience to understand you. It’s a lot of pressure, and for me was the most pressurising of all. But once I left that stage, a sense of accomplishment filled me with joy. I felt as though I achieved something. Everything ran smoothly, lines were on point, blocking was perfect, the lighting was great, everything in this place was in our favour, including the audiences response.
If anything could have been improved it would have been to have a stylized set design that overshadowed the themes of the play, like a war/army design, to show the conflict. I think that would have made the production even better. But even though the stage design was plain, it worked well with the play as a whole. It felt mature and natural to perform. But apart from that there was nothing I personally would go back and changed about this production. I feel as though this is by far the best work I have ever produced, which is ironic because after I found out we were going to be doing Shakespeare I was worried that I wouldn't be able to pull it off. Watching the production back gave me the greatest satisfaction. My monologues were to the best standard which I could have hoped for. Looking through the development, I have gone a long way from standing in one saying my line, to moving with force acting my lines. I feel like a proud mum, watching her child succeed. The process was hard in capturing the characters to their fullest, but it has also been a process which I have very much enjoyed and am proud of.
I have learned the vocabulary, pronunciation and understanding of Shakespeare and his language. At the beginning I understood words and meaning to a limit, but now it’s as though it is a second language to me. Through becoming something, like I did with the characters, you learn everything about them; I did that with my character like Goneril and Cordeila. At first I thought Goneril was a ‘cow’ to put it lightly, but after becoming her it was an understatement. Her vindictive and manipulative, evil ways sparked outrage through as an outsider. But after becoming her, I felt that empowerment and dominance which she holds. In contrast with Cordeila who is innocent and pure. Becoming her at first was easy, but after understanding the sad, emotional context of her monologue it became tricky, to display such emotional drama she has in that final monologue towards her father, she’s crying with sadness and anger that this is how she sees her father, alone and sick. Between the two monologues this was the harder one to conquer due to the drama I had to convey and capitalise.
In the performance the bit that stands out to me the most and is successful is my character Goneril speaking directly and involving the audience. The audiences reaction was lively, the laughed and interacted wincing when my anger was at its highest. They expressed emotions that actors hope for, the made me want to exaggerate and come to life even more, with the more display of joy the showed, the more in character and emphasise I showed. The Goneril showed the entire characteristic which she holds to her fullest, so did Cordeila, whose final scene displayed pure emotion of sadness, anger, sympathy and heartbreak. Overall this has without a doubt been a successful performance, which I have enjoyed as well as they audience.
If anything could have been improved it would have been to have a stylized set design that overshadowed the themes of the play, like a war/army design, to show the conflict. I think that would have made the production even better. But even though the stage design was plain, it worked well with the play as a whole. It felt mature and natural to perform. But apart from that there was nothing I personally would go back and changed about this production. I feel as though this is by far the best work I have ever produced, which is ironic because after I found out we were going to be doing Shakespeare I was worried that I wouldn't be able to pull it off. Watching the production back gave me the greatest satisfaction. My monologues were to the best standard which I could have hoped for. Looking through the development, I have gone a long way from standing in one saying my line, to moving with force acting my lines. I feel like a proud mum, watching her child succeed. The process was hard in capturing the characters to their fullest, but it has also been a process which I have very much enjoyed and am proud of.
I have learned the vocabulary, pronunciation and understanding of Shakespeare and his language. At the beginning I understood words and meaning to a limit, but now it’s as though it is a second language to me. Through becoming something, like I did with the characters, you learn everything about them; I did that with my character like Goneril and Cordeila. At first I thought Goneril was a ‘cow’ to put it lightly, but after becoming her it was an understatement. Her vindictive and manipulative, evil ways sparked outrage through as an outsider. But after becoming her, I felt that empowerment and dominance which she holds. In contrast with Cordeila who is innocent and pure. Becoming her at first was easy, but after understanding the sad, emotional context of her monologue it became tricky, to display such emotional drama she has in that final monologue towards her father, she’s crying with sadness and anger that this is how she sees her father, alone and sick. Between the two monologues this was the harder one to conquer due to the drama I had to convey and capitalise.
In the performance the bit that stands out to me the most and is successful is my character Goneril speaking directly and involving the audience. The audiences reaction was lively, the laughed and interacted wincing when my anger was at its highest. They expressed emotions that actors hope for, the made me want to exaggerate and come to life even more, with the more display of joy the showed, the more in character and emphasise I showed. The Goneril showed the entire characteristic which she holds to her fullest, so did Cordeila, whose final scene displayed pure emotion of sadness, anger, sympathy and heartbreak. Overall this has without a doubt been a successful performance, which I have enjoyed as well as they audience.