Having read King Lear before I decided I wanted to find a performance to watch, especially since this class is focused on adaptations and I find it necessary to both watch and read plays to fully appreciate them. So I stumbled across the 2008 "film" adaptation starring Ian McKellen as King Lear, directed by Trevor Nunn. Here's a clip from the recorded version* of the same stage production produced by PBS (the full version is on instant Netflix):
*From interviews I watched, the film version was not intended to be a "film" but rather a recording of the stage production, and thus "lacks" what one might find in a film adaptation in terms of scenery and such.
Alan Riding of The New York Times reviewed the stage production in 2007. His article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/theater/02ridi.html?pagewanted=all . Riding's article begins with an issue that I have never considered when reading this play before--the age of Lear in the play versus the age of the person performing the role.
"I am a very foolish fond old man, / Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less; / And, to deal plainly, / I fear I am not in my perfect mind" (Act IV.7, 62-65). This passage summarizes this central theme of age in the play. Lear at 80 years old, recognizes his own humanity. He is losing his mind and more importantly control over his own life.
What I find interesting however is not this idea of aging, but Shakespeare's portrayal of Lear as an octogenarian. In an age where the average life expectancy was about 35 years old, Shakespeare wrote this play with what I believe is one of his oldest characters. Making Lear upwards of 80 seems almost excessive. Surely audiences would have found Lear just as old had he been two or threescore in years. By this standard, the majority of the characters, especially Goneril and Regan would be themselves "old".
Of course I'm not going to argue that a play, especially a tragedy such as this, must conform to any standards of realism. Yet, I would be interested to know how the play would have been staged in terms of Lear's appearance by Shakespeare. As Riding and other writers mention, the actor that the role was most likely written for would have been half of Lear's age. I find it fascinating that Shakespeare would have made a character so specifically aged when it was unlikely any actor reaching that age (or really anyone still living at that age).
Interestingly, as the centuries go by, the actors portraying Lear have become nearer to the age of the character themselves. Ian McKellan was only 67 when he began this production of Lear, making him still 13 plus years younger than Shakespeare designed, and yet he is far closer than many of his predecessors age-wise. The role of King Lear has become this capstone performance piece for older, established actors. This year, for example, another film version of the play starring Al Pacino (now 71 years old) as Lear is set to be released.
I wonder then if modern performances of Lear more aptly portray the thematic of time and aging since the performers are so much closer in age to the titular character.
The Immortality of Garrick
David Garrick, the eighteenth-century actor, playwright, and theater manager often credited with Shakespeare's 18th-century revival, is here lauded by a group of 17 actors in their favorite Shakespearean characters, as he is carried to his apotheosis
You raise some really interesting points, Amy--one, about the relationship between actor and role. You wonder at the end that McKellan's Lear might have been more "apt" since he is closer in age to the actual Lear; as I read your post, though, I was thinking that Shakespeare's audience would have been accustomed to seeing young boys play women, so watching a comparatively young Burbage play an 80-something year old wouldn't have been a great stretch of the imagination for them. (I'm also reminded of some Kabuki performances I've seen, in which, again, men play all the parts, and keep the parts their entire lives / careers--so in one performance I saw, and 80-something year old man played the part of a 17-year old virgin. The actor is considered something of a national treasure, and the audience was ecstatic about his performance.) So, your post makes me reflect on the subjectivity, and fluidity, with which audiences view the relationship between character and role.
ReplyDeleteYour other query--why make Lear SO old--is really interesting. As I started to say in class, Lear's _extreme_ age makes me think about the idea of endurance we see discussed in the play...at the end, other characters will be amazed that he lived as long as he did, and lived through what he did. Granted, at the beginning of the play Lear's major suffering is yet to come, but making him so old at the outset seems to set up this idea of endurance / enduring in some way.
Obviously, this is a play about old men--Gloucester is old, the fool is often cast as an older man (see the RSC production), Kent specifies that he is past middle age--but Lear's extreme old age also perhaps emphasizes a painful point about age and utility, necessity, usefulness...Lear himself meditates on the idea of necessity as it pertains to objects (see "O reason not the need!"). I wonder if, by making him as old as he does, Shakespeare accentuates the idea of Lear, object-like, wearing out.
Also very interesting that this "worn out character" would and does represent for actors a major challenged and performance opportunity.
ReplyDeleteAfter viewing this film adaption and the one we viewed in class on Monday, I've definitely reached the conclusion that the freedom with which directors, screenwriters, and actors interpret Shakespeare's plays or any written text for that matter, knows no bounds. The film we viewed in class portrayed King Lear as a senile, rambling sort of man while I had pictured him as a rather powerful, manipulative speaker in the opening scenes of the first act; this snippet similarly emphasizes Lear's old age and his failing sense of utility. I had never considered the motivations behind making him as old as he is in both the films and the play, but that is an interesting thought that prompts the question: in the process of adapting a play to the screen, how much of a role does interpretation play? And in this case, do people see it as a form of artistic expression or as misinterpreting Shakespeare's "original" intentions?
ReplyDeleteI never thought about that actually- I knew that the average life expectancy in Shakespeare's time wasn't too high, but now that I know it was 35...that definitely calls into question Shakespeare's intentions in making Lear so old. I always just kind of assumed that his age was a way to make it believable that his daughters (Goneril and Regan) believe him to be too senile to take seriously. Had Lear been middle-aged or something, it would have seemed too far a stretch--to me his age lends a bit of credit to the otherwise wicked seeming older daughters of King Lear.
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