Sympathy For King Lear
King Lear
If I were to stage a performance of King Lear, I would attempt to cultivates more sympathy for the unruly royal father. When I first read this play, I judged King Lear harshly for making one foolish mistake after another. I viewed his treatment of Regan, and Goneril as sufficient evidence for his eviction. King Lear was neither intelligent or moral. He was simply an outdated, foolish, and hostile old man. However, after digesting the play I have found the folly of my ways. Since the audience knows Cordelia’s intentions, it is all too easy for us to pass judgement on King Lear. My production of this play would illustrate King Lear’s disappointment at Cordelia’s answer, so the audience can at the very least appreciate the motivation for his rash decision, beyond concluding that he is punishing the only daughter who did not lie to him. After all, here is a man who has raised, and loved his daughters so completely that he is ready to hand over all he owns for their happiness. All he wants in return is some appreciation for this …show more content…
sacrifice. While he does use vain methods to get this thanks, it comes out of an insecurity that his relationship with daughters may be one-sided. All he craves is validation that Regan and Goneril are all too happy to provide, making Cordelia honest answer all the more shocking and hurtful to him. While his decision to banish Cordelia was foolish it was out of great pain rather than anger or worse embarrassment. It is also important to highlight how after giving everything to the daughters who he believed loved him more than anything, he again finds himself betrayed.
While his actions were not respectful towards the two dishonest sisters, they too are not unfounded. King Lear is used to getting everything he has ever wanted, and he has given it away with the expectations that he will still live the same lifestyle, and make his own rules. This is not an unreasonable expectation-- especially after Goneril and Regan's profession of love.
This theme of ineffective communication should also be highlighted in the Gloucester/Edgar/Edmund story arc. Edmund, like the two sister was able to manipulate his father to achieve his goals. He was able to capitalize on his father’s insecurities that became more pronounced when he witnessed the maltreatment of King Lear. He was able to relate to both Goneril and Regan to wind them around his
finger.
This particular theme of the story is becoming particularly relevant as the older age group is becoming a bigger part of the population demographic. The generation gap is often used as an excuse not to look at those like King Lear as complexly as those of a younger demographic. Thwarted expectations and miscommunication is what motivated most of King Lear’s poor decisions, and if any one of his children, including Cordelia, would have had this realization, then this tragedy could have been avoided all together. I am not quite certain how to highlight this theme, perhaps instructing the actor who portrays King Lear to find most of the motivation for his anger in his deep disappointment. Perhaps setting this story in modern times would also bring home this point. As long as the end result would foster sympathise for the older generation, before they are rendered mad.
Cymbeline
The first aspect of this production that would need to be addressed would be how to aid the audience in keeping track of all the characters. I am of the opinion that an audience member should be able to go to a show without any prior knowledge and watch the show and still leave with a fundamental understanding of the show. Many Shakespearian productions rely on the fact that the audience already knows the outline of the plot. In Romeo and Juliet the complete plot is even plainly given in the prologue. This allows these productions room to interpret this play in more imaginative ways because the focus does not have to be on audience comprehension. However, Cymbeline is not one of these plays—the chief goal of this production is getting everyone to keep track of the events unfolding before them. At first I thought costumes would be a sufficient solution, with characters’ color schemed aligned with their loyalty/motivation. For instance, the Queen and Cloten would wear red, symbolic of the power they craved. As I read further it became apparent that due to the disguises and secret affiliations that costumes would not be enough to help keep each character straight. To help those keep track of the brothers, and Imogen/Fidele, (could that code name be any more transparent) each character biologically related to the king should have bright red hair. This would set these characters clearly apart, so when Imogene reentered as Fidele, or when the brothers dawned on peasantry clothes, they would still be recognizable.
Once audience comprehension had been addressed the next choice would be the style of the play. Personally, when reading this production I imagined it in a telenovela style. The strong emotions of the characters paired with the deus ex machina ending makes me inclined to create a story with exaggerated movements to create humor with the lines. This would hopefully make keeping track of the characters with their different mannerisms easier, in addition to making the plot more intriguing and engaging through humor. In terms of theme I honestly had some trouble distilling a theme from all this plot-- it seems to be an all’s well that ends well tale (well unless you are not evil). Perhaps the power of truth, and again the importance of honest communication could be possible messages. Another very surface theme could be that the deceitful will be punished, while the faithful and valiant will live happily. When I see this production, since I am already aware of the plot, I will be able to focus more on figuring out Shakespeare’s message.
The Two Noble Kinsmen
I am obsessed with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So it is with this mentality that I read Two Noble Kinsmen as soon as read the character list. I immediately started picturing the Thesuesu and Hippolyta I already knew in this new reality. Perhaps this is the reason that I found many of the same themes of Midsummer in The Two Noble Kinsman.
In both of these plays there are two men vying for the attention of a girl. In both instances the final decision of who gets the girl is out of either the woman or man’s control--fate and magic make the decision. This makes a statement of the fickleness, and perhaps even the triviality of love.
In addition to this Midsummer’s theme, I noticed this play also seems to make commentary on how easily people are willing to resort to violence, not just in the interest of love. War is waged because three kings did not get a proper burial. This means that many more men will face an early death because of three already dead men. (I acknowledge that my ignorance may be showing. I realize this is an important religious ritual, but as Shakespeare acknowledges this is a retelling of a story. I wonder when it was rewritten if Shakespeare approved of the incitement of conflict, or if this retelling was created to be a subtle satire of the original, trying to make a commentary about the trivial motivations behind gratutious violence.) Then these two “noble” men are willing to kill, and risk their lives, for a cause they do not believe in simply because they apart of that country. These supposedly loyal friends then are pushed to violence against each other at the mere sight of an attractive woman. In all of the circumstances the bloodshed seems to be unfounded. There is gore in a lot of Shakespeare's plays, but the blood is usually shed in a quest for vengeance, or at least power. I am curious to see how this production will depict the violence, if the production uses gore to display the full effects of the character’s action, it will confirm this possible theme.
The Tempest
The first design hurdle that needs to be conquered right off the bat is how the magic will be depicted. In film CGI takes care of this tricky aspect of the play. However, in a stage adaptation this will have to be tweaked. If Furman did The Tempest, lighting design would produce of many of these effects. I envision Robert’s original plan for Pillowman, with a scrim that allows either shadow-like projections, or shadow puppets for Katurian’s stories as a perfect solution for scenes in the Tempest involving magic. Instead of taking an actor and giving him/her extensive prosthetic make-up, their should instead just be a voice actor that plays Ariel. On stage Ariel would be seen as a shadow on the scrim, instead of a living entity.
I would want all of these projections of magic to be cast in black and white, until the very end. The color of either black or white would express the morality of the character subjected to this magic from the point of view of Prospero. there is much moral ambiguity with each character, however since Prospero holds all the supernatural power he is the sole judge, and executor of justice. In his mind, there are immoral people who deserve punishment, (and in these cases the magic used against them would be a solid black shadow), and those who are righteous (these would have only the outline in black with the inside being white.) This will help the audience keep the many characters straight in addition to supporting the theme. As the play progressed, they may also find themselves predicting the color of the magic used on a certain character, thus placing themselves in a role similar to Prospero.
The end scene of the Tempest would involve Prospero finishing the epilogue then waiting the start of applause to break his staff on his knee--and as he does so the projections would erupt around Prospero in a rainbow of colors. I admit this would be a tacky ending, but when a character asks the audience to applaud him to give him validation for his decision, it this design choice out of place?
Before I staged this production there are a few qualms I found about the plot that would need to be sorted out. The thing that stood out to me about this production is the blanket forgiveness that was given at the end of the performance. I do not understand this decision, it seemed like the episode in the woods where the two moral men were put to sleep and Sebastian and Antonio discussed killing Alonso and Gonzalo was a clever test designed by Prospero. Both Alonso and Antonio failed, miserably. While vengeance was enacted, the forgiveness seemed to be unfounded--was it the love of Miranda and Ferdinand that caused this change of heart? How could a character that could be so stern with Ariel and Caliban, decide to forgive everybody at the end. It did not seem to be a progression, but rather a rather quick change of character. I hope that you don’t misunderstand, forgiveness is an important theme, and it’s a switch from lots of other plays where the characters reap what they sow many times they meet a death despite their change in morality. Prospero seems content with this decision, however the fact that he needs the audiences validation makes me question how strongly this theme was established. Perhaps the staged production’s interpretation will help sort out these plot holes so I can bring the magic of the Tempest to a stage across the pond.
The Rover
This play’s plot mirrors Cymbeline with a lot attempted rape sprinkled in. Like Cymbeline, their the play is wrought with deception and disguises that could confuse the audience. So if I were to stage this production, I would again find a way to have a color scheme for each character so even in disguise the audience would be able to follow along.
When reading this play I personally pictured the actor with the characters name scrawled on a poster that hung round their neck, and then when in disguise this poster would have their real name crossed out and their secret identity written out. As you can probably tell I read this play as a farce. I feel this is the only way to remedy the discourse between the plot of the play and the research I did about Behn. She was praised for being a feminist writer, however practically every female character gets sexually assaulted in this plot. It reminds me of The Lieutenant of Inishmore where McDonnough uses graphic scenes meant to shock and horrify the audience to highlight the absurdity of violence. In The Rover’s case I believe Behn was trying to show the absurdity of the treatment of women.
The Rover seems to drive home the saying my mother taught me before entering high school, which is “Men fake love to get sex, and women fake sex to get love.” The plot supports this assertion. Angelica wields sex like a weapon, however, her feelings are her downfall. Willmore uses his smooth romantic talk to seduce Angelica’s, however the same mouth gets him into trouble as he describes this conquest. Perhaps Behn means this to be a social commentary that this saying should not a universal truth you teach your adolescent girl.
Another interpretation of this play is found when one takes into consideration the place of women in society at the time it was written. This play was probably one of the first that had female characters willing to directly disobey male orders, this could be seen a form of woman empowerment. Although Angelica is hoodwinked she does takes control of her sex life, and uses it command respect and money. Also, the end pairing of the play all match with the woman’s desires not the male wishes, which again may explain how Behn’s writing is considered to be empowering for women.
If I were to stage a performance of King Lear, I would attempt to cultivates more sympathy for the unruly royal father. When I first read this play, I judged King Lear harshly for making one foolish mistake after another. I viewed his treatment of Regan, and Goneril as sufficient evidence for his eviction. King Lear was neither intelligent or moral. He was simply an outdated, foolish, and hostile old man. However, after digesting the play I have found the folly of my ways. Since the audience knows Cordelia’s intentions, it is all too easy for us to pass judgement on King Lear. My production of this play would illustrate King Lear’s disappointment at Cordelia’s answer, so the audience can at the very least appreciate the motivation for his rash decision, beyond concluding that he is punishing the only daughter who did not lie to him. After all, here is a man who has raised, and loved his daughters so completely that he is ready to hand over all he owns for their happiness. All he wants in return is some appreciation for this …show more content…
sacrifice. While he does use vain methods to get this thanks, it comes out of an insecurity that his relationship with daughters may be one-sided. All he craves is validation that Regan and Goneril are all too happy to provide, making Cordelia honest answer all the more shocking and hurtful to him. While his decision to banish Cordelia was foolish it was out of great pain rather than anger or worse embarrassment. It is also important to highlight how after giving everything to the daughters who he believed loved him more than anything, he again finds himself betrayed.
While his actions were not respectful towards the two dishonest sisters, they too are not unfounded. King Lear is used to getting everything he has ever wanted, and he has given it away with the expectations that he will still live the same lifestyle, and make his own rules. This is not an unreasonable expectation-- especially after Goneril and Regan's profession of love.
This theme of ineffective communication should also be highlighted in the Gloucester/Edgar/Edmund story arc. Edmund, like the two sister was able to manipulate his father to achieve his goals. He was able to capitalize on his father’s insecurities that became more pronounced when he witnessed the maltreatment of King Lear. He was able to relate to both Goneril and Regan to wind them around his
finger.
This particular theme of the story is becoming particularly relevant as the older age group is becoming a bigger part of the population demographic. The generation gap is often used as an excuse not to look at those like King Lear as complexly as those of a younger demographic. Thwarted expectations and miscommunication is what motivated most of King Lear’s poor decisions, and if any one of his children, including Cordelia, would have had this realization, then this tragedy could have been avoided all together. I am not quite certain how to highlight this theme, perhaps instructing the actor who portrays King Lear to find most of the motivation for his anger in his deep disappointment. Perhaps setting this story in modern times would also bring home this point. As long as the end result would foster sympathise for the older generation, before they are rendered mad.
Cymbeline
The first aspect of this production that would need to be addressed would be how to aid the audience in keeping track of all the characters. I am of the opinion that an audience member should be able to go to a show without any prior knowledge and watch the show and still leave with a fundamental understanding of the show. Many Shakespearian productions rely on the fact that the audience already knows the outline of the plot. In Romeo and Juliet the complete plot is even plainly given in the prologue. This allows these productions room to interpret this play in more imaginative ways because the focus does not have to be on audience comprehension. However, Cymbeline is not one of these plays—the chief goal of this production is getting everyone to keep track of the events unfolding before them. At first I thought costumes would be a sufficient solution, with characters’ color schemed aligned with their loyalty/motivation. For instance, the Queen and Cloten would wear red, symbolic of the power they craved. As I read further it became apparent that due to the disguises and secret affiliations that costumes would not be enough to help keep each character straight. To help those keep track of the brothers, and Imogen/Fidele, (could that code name be any more transparent) each character biologically related to the king should have bright red hair. This would set these characters clearly apart, so when Imogene reentered as Fidele, or when the brothers dawned on peasantry clothes, they would still be recognizable.
Once audience comprehension had been addressed the next choice would be the style of the play. Personally, when reading this production I imagined it in a telenovela style. The strong emotions of the characters paired with the deus ex machina ending makes me inclined to create a story with exaggerated movements to create humor with the lines. This would hopefully make keeping track of the characters with their different mannerisms easier, in addition to making the plot more intriguing and engaging through humor. In terms of theme I honestly had some trouble distilling a theme from all this plot-- it seems to be an all’s well that ends well tale (well unless you are not evil). Perhaps the power of truth, and again the importance of honest communication could be possible messages. Another very surface theme could be that the deceitful will be punished, while the faithful and valiant will live happily. When I see this production, since I am already aware of the plot, I will be able to focus more on figuring out Shakespeare’s message.
The Two Noble Kinsmen
I am obsessed with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So it is with this mentality that I read Two Noble Kinsmen as soon as read the character list. I immediately started picturing the Thesuesu and Hippolyta I already knew in this new reality. Perhaps this is the reason that I found many of the same themes of Midsummer in The Two Noble Kinsman.
In both of these plays there are two men vying for the attention of a girl. In both instances the final decision of who gets the girl is out of either the woman or man’s control--fate and magic make the decision. This makes a statement of the fickleness, and perhaps even the triviality of love.
In addition to this Midsummer’s theme, I noticed this play also seems to make commentary on how easily people are willing to resort to violence, not just in the interest of love. War is waged because three kings did not get a proper burial. This means that many more men will face an early death because of three already dead men. (I acknowledge that my ignorance may be showing. I realize this is an important religious ritual, but as Shakespeare acknowledges this is a retelling of a story. I wonder when it was rewritten if Shakespeare approved of the incitement of conflict, or if this retelling was created to be a subtle satire of the original, trying to make a commentary about the trivial motivations behind gratutious violence.) Then these two “noble” men are willing to kill, and risk their lives, for a cause they do not believe in simply because they apart of that country. These supposedly loyal friends then are pushed to violence against each other at the mere sight of an attractive woman. In all of the circumstances the bloodshed seems to be unfounded. There is gore in a lot of Shakespeare's plays, but the blood is usually shed in a quest for vengeance, or at least power. I am curious to see how this production will depict the violence, if the production uses gore to display the full effects of the character’s action, it will confirm this possible theme.
The Tempest
The first design hurdle that needs to be conquered right off the bat is how the magic will be depicted. In film CGI takes care of this tricky aspect of the play. However, in a stage adaptation this will have to be tweaked. If Furman did The Tempest, lighting design would produce of many of these effects. I envision Robert’s original plan for Pillowman, with a scrim that allows either shadow-like projections, or shadow puppets for Katurian’s stories as a perfect solution for scenes in the Tempest involving magic. Instead of taking an actor and giving him/her extensive prosthetic make-up, their should instead just be a voice actor that plays Ariel. On stage Ariel would be seen as a shadow on the scrim, instead of a living entity.
I would want all of these projections of magic to be cast in black and white, until the very end. The color of either black or white would express the morality of the character subjected to this magic from the point of view of Prospero. there is much moral ambiguity with each character, however since Prospero holds all the supernatural power he is the sole judge, and executor of justice. In his mind, there are immoral people who deserve punishment, (and in these cases the magic used against them would be a solid black shadow), and those who are righteous (these would have only the outline in black with the inside being white.) This will help the audience keep the many characters straight in addition to supporting the theme. As the play progressed, they may also find themselves predicting the color of the magic used on a certain character, thus placing themselves in a role similar to Prospero.
The end scene of the Tempest would involve Prospero finishing the epilogue then waiting the start of applause to break his staff on his knee--and as he does so the projections would erupt around Prospero in a rainbow of colors. I admit this would be a tacky ending, but when a character asks the audience to applaud him to give him validation for his decision, it this design choice out of place?
Before I staged this production there are a few qualms I found about the plot that would need to be sorted out. The thing that stood out to me about this production is the blanket forgiveness that was given at the end of the performance. I do not understand this decision, it seemed like the episode in the woods where the two moral men were put to sleep and Sebastian and Antonio discussed killing Alonso and Gonzalo was a clever test designed by Prospero. Both Alonso and Antonio failed, miserably. While vengeance was enacted, the forgiveness seemed to be unfounded--was it the love of Miranda and Ferdinand that caused this change of heart? How could a character that could be so stern with Ariel and Caliban, decide to forgive everybody at the end. It did not seem to be a progression, but rather a rather quick change of character. I hope that you don’t misunderstand, forgiveness is an important theme, and it’s a switch from lots of other plays where the characters reap what they sow many times they meet a death despite their change in morality. Prospero seems content with this decision, however the fact that he needs the audiences validation makes me question how strongly this theme was established. Perhaps the staged production’s interpretation will help sort out these plot holes so I can bring the magic of the Tempest to a stage across the pond.
The Rover
This play’s plot mirrors Cymbeline with a lot attempted rape sprinkled in. Like Cymbeline, their the play is wrought with deception and disguises that could confuse the audience. So if I were to stage this production, I would again find a way to have a color scheme for each character so even in disguise the audience would be able to follow along.
When reading this play I personally pictured the actor with the characters name scrawled on a poster that hung round their neck, and then when in disguise this poster would have their real name crossed out and their secret identity written out. As you can probably tell I read this play as a farce. I feel this is the only way to remedy the discourse between the plot of the play and the research I did about Behn. She was praised for being a feminist writer, however practically every female character gets sexually assaulted in this plot. It reminds me of The Lieutenant of Inishmore where McDonnough uses graphic scenes meant to shock and horrify the audience to highlight the absurdity of violence. In The Rover’s case I believe Behn was trying to show the absurdity of the treatment of women.
The Rover seems to drive home the saying my mother taught me before entering high school, which is “Men fake love to get sex, and women fake sex to get love.” The plot supports this assertion. Angelica wields sex like a weapon, however, her feelings are her downfall. Willmore uses his smooth romantic talk to seduce Angelica’s, however the same mouth gets him into trouble as he describes this conquest. Perhaps Behn means this to be a social commentary that this saying should not a universal truth you teach your adolescent girl.
Another interpretation of this play is found when one takes into consideration the place of women in society at the time it was written. This play was probably one of the first that had female characters willing to directly disobey male orders, this could be seen a form of woman empowerment. Although Angelica is hoodwinked she does takes control of her sex life, and uses it command respect and money. Also, the end pairing of the play all match with the woman’s desires not the male wishes, which again may explain how Behn’s writing is considered to be empowering for women.