Play Guide
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The Play Guide for King Lear was created by: Shari Wattling Artistic Associate and Production Dramaturg Zachary Moull Assistant Dramaturg Mike Griffin Assistant Director
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King Lear runs from March 10 to April 12, 2015 For tickets, visit theatrecalgary.com or call (403) 294-7447 Front cover image by David Cooper
Table of Contents THE BASICS Cast and Creative Team ..................................................... 01 Who’s Who? ...................................................................... 02 Time and Place ................................................................. 02 The Story .......................................................................... 03 EXPLORATIONS The Thrill of Shakespeare An Interview with Benedict Campbell ........................ 06 Bard on the Beach ............................................................. 09 Who Was William Shakespeare? ......................................... 11 The Origins of King Lear .................................................... 13 Nahum Tate’s “Improvement” of King Lear .......................... 15 Illuminating King Lear A Note from Production Dramaturg Shari Wattling ..... 16 Nobles and Peasants: The Feudal System ............................20 Jesters and Fools ............................................................... 21 Weapons and Warfare ....................................................... 22 A Textured World An Interview with Costume Designer Deitra Kalyn ...... 24 The Wheel of Fortune ........................................................ 27 Elizabethan Astrology ........................................................ 28 CONVERSATIONS Conversation Starters ........................................................ 29 The Royal Reading List ...................................................... 29 Movie Night ...................................................................... 30 Sources ............................................................................ 31
THE BASICS
-1-
Cast and Creative Team
KING LEAR By William Shakespeare THE CAST
Byron Allen Scott Bellis Michael Blake Ian Butcher Benedict Campbell Tyrell Crews Robert Klein Jennifer Lines David Marr John Murphy Chirag Naik Declan O’Reilly Andrea Rankin Nathan Schmidt Colleen Wheeler
King of France Fool Edmund Oswald King Lear Edgar Duke of Cornwall Regan Earl of Gloucester Earl of Kent Duke of Burgundy, Curan Duke of Albany Cordelia Knight Goneril
THE CREATIVE TEAM Dennis Garnhum Pam Johnson Deitra Kalyn Gerald King Dave Pierce Shari Wattling Ian Watson Jane MacFarlane Haysam Kadri Karl Sine Nathan Schmidt Mike Griffin Donovan Seidle
Director Set Design Costume Design Lighting Design Original Music Dramaturg Text Coach Vocal Coach Fight Director Fight Director Fight Captain Assistant Director Assistant to Dave Pierce
Stephen Courtenay Emma Brager Alexandra Shewan
Stage Manager Assistant Stage Manager Apprentice Stage Manager
THE BASICS
-2-
Who’s Who? King Lear: King of Britain Goneril: Lear’s eldest daughter Regan: Lear’s second-eldest daughter Cordelia: Lear’s youngest daughter Duke of Albany: Goneril’s husband Duke of Cornwall: Regan’s husband Earl of Gloucester: Lear’s cherished old friend Edgar: Gloucester’s legitimate son Edmund: Gloucester’s illegitimate son Earl of Kent: Lear’s trusted advisor The Fool: Lear’s court jester A Knight: part of Lear’s following Duke of Burgundy: suitor of Cordelia King of France: suitor of Cordelia Oswald: Goneril’s servant Curan: Gloucester’s servant
Time and Place Theatre Calgary’s production of King Lear is set in the kingdom of Britain in the late Middle Ages. The action of the play takes place inside King Lear’s castle, Goneril and Albany’s castle, and Gloucester’s castle, as well as outside on a heath near Gloucester’s castle, and on battlefields near the coast of Dover.
THE BASICS
-3-
The Story PART ONE King Lear gathers his family and friends at a celebratory feast. He announces that he will divide his kingdom between his three daughters and asks each to say how much they love him. His older daughters, Goneril
and
Regan,
offer
flattering declarations of love. Cordelia, the youngest, refuses to say more than that she loves him just as much as a daughter should, no more nor less. Lear is
outraged
and
banishes
Cordelia. When the Earl of Kent,
Lear’s
loyal
advisor,
objects to this, Lear banishes him too. The King of France offers to marry Cordelia and the two depart the kingdom. The
Earl
of
Gloucester,
Lear banishes his daughter Cordelia. Benedict Campbell, far left, and Andrea Rankin, far right, with other cast members in rehearsal (Meghan McMaster)
a
cherished friend of Lear, is tricked by his illegitimate son Edmund
into
believing
his
legitimate son Edgar wants him dead. Kent
disguises
himself
and
rejoins Lear as his servant at Goneril’s castle, where Lear is angered by his daughter’s lack of hospitality and disrespect. Lear and his entourage of
Kent roughs up Goneril’s servant Oswald after he disrespects Lear. In foreground from left: Benedict Campbell, John Murphy, and Ian Butcher, with other cast members in rehearsal (Meghan McMaster)
THE BASICS
-4Knights depart to stay with Regan, sending Kent ahead as messenger. Scheming Edmund convinces Edgar to flee from their father Gloucester’s anger. To avoid capture,
Edgar
disguises
himself as a mad beggar, calls himself ‘Poor Tom,’ and goes into hiding.
Edmund draws his father Gloucester deeper into his plot. Cast members in rehearsal (Meghan McMaster)
Regan and her husband, the Duke of Cornwall, travel to Gloucester’s castle to avoid Lear. Lear soon arrives there too and is furious that his servant, the disguised Kent, has been put in the stocks. When both his daughters seem to offer the same lack of respect, Lear departs as a storm begins. PART TWO
Lear shouts at the skies. Benedict Campbell in rehearsal (Shari Wattling)
Lear shouts at the skies as the storm intensifies. Kent and Lear’s Fool bring him to shelter where they encounter Edgar in his disguise as Poor Tom. Secretly, Gloucester arranges to send Lear to Dover, where Cordelia has landed with the French army to fight on the king’s behalf. Edmund exposes his father’s plans to Cornwall and Regan. To punish him, Cornwall gouges out Gloucester’s eyes, before being fatally wounded himself by a distraught servant.
THE BASICS
-5Blind and turned out into the wilderness, Gloucester meets Poor Tom, but does not recognize him as his son Edgar. The two make their way to Dover together, where they find Lear wandering mad and alone. Goneril and Regan are both attracted to Edmund and have become jealous of each other’s affections. Goneril sends a letter to Edmund that outlines a plan to kill her husband, the Duke of Albany, so that Edmund and she can be together. This letter is intercepted by Edgar, who secretly gives it to Albany as he prepares to join the battle against the invading French army. Lear
is
reunited
with
his
daughter Cordelia, but when the French army is defeated by the English on the battlefield, Edmund takes both father and daughter captive and secretly orders their deaths. Goneril poisons Regan in jealousy over Edmund, and then kills herself when her betrayal is revealed. Edgar
fatally
wounds
his
The British and the French meet on the battlefield. Cast members in rehearsal (Shari Wattling)
brother Edmund in a duel, as their father Gloucester dies from the stress of the battle. With his dying breaths, Edmund tries to reverse his orders to kill Cordelia and Lear – but it is too late. Lear arrives with Cordelia’s body in his arms and dies of a broken heart.
“You could say that even people who speak English don’t understand every word that Shakespeare wrote, but you can certainly understand the feelings and the emotions.” – Kevin Spacey
EXPLORATIONS
-6-
The Thrill of Shakespeare An Interview with Benedict Campbell
Benedict Campbell
A veteran of ten seasons at the Stratford Festival and twelve at the Shaw Festival, Benedict Campbell has an impressive résumé of classical roles ranging from Mark Antony to King Henry IV to Andrew Undershaft. He’s also performed in King Lear twice before: first as Edmund in 1985, with his father Douglas Campbell as Lear, and then as the Earl of Kent in 2002, with Christopher Plummer in the title role. “Benedict comes from a theatre family and from a huge tradition,” says King Lear director Dennis Garnhum, “and you can tell that from his profound understanding of Shakespeare.” We spoke with Benedict during the first week of the rehearsal process. Would you take us through Lear’s journey? Lear starts from a place of hope. He has a plan in which he can retire and still maintain his title. He wants it all – to behave like the king, but not have any of the day-to-day drudgery. He wants a peaceful journey to the end. But as with life, other people’s plans get in the way.
EXPLORATIONS
-7-
Two big things happen. One is that his youngest daughter Cordelia, for whom he has the most affection, refuses to play the game he sets up of saying who loves him most. He’s really saying “I just want to hear how much you all love me.” He’s planning to spend most of his time with Cordelia, so the first disaster is when she says she won’t play along: “I love you according to my bond, no more nor less.” That sends him spiralling out of control. Of course, he runs into surprises with his other daughters too. He’s given them everything they could possibly want in life:
Benedict Campbell as King Lear (Trudie Lee)
power, wealth, influence. But they don’t live up to their part of the bargain. So the journey for Lear to that point is one of profound and cataclysmic disappointment. Then at the same time, he discovers a fear of madness, which is tied to his decision to give some of his powers away. It’s a fear of age, of getting old, of being forgotten and not loved. And the beauty of the story, to me, is that when he does become mad, or what is considered mad, he’s probably the most sane he ever is in the play. He behaves in a peculiar manner, yes, but he sees the truth and the hypocrisy of the world. He understands that better than he ever has. Towards the end of the play, he has this wonderful reconciliation with Cordelia. After all the misery he’s been through, it looks like he’s going to get what he wanted, his perfect life. He’s going to spend his dotage with his youngest daughter. But then she dies, and his heart is broken.
EXPLORATIONS
-8-
We’re just a few days into the rehearsal process. What sort of work is going on right now? Sometimes you’d start by sitting around a table for a long time and discussing the text, but Dennis has mostly wanted us to get up on our feet and start staging the scenes. There’s a charge that comes into your body from working with other people. We tend to be different people with others than by ourselves, and that’s no different in acting. So your relation to the other actors helps you develop the character? Yes, that’s a good way of putting it. The preparation I’ve put into the role is meaningless once I’m standing up and talking to someone else, because they won’t respond in the way that I’ve played out in my head. And that’s exciting. I sometimes find myself going to the same places that I have gone to in the past, and I think rehearsal is really about trying to shake off those idiosyncrasies – shedding the parts of you that are unnecessary for the role. What advice would you have for audience members of King Lear? Have faith that you will understand, because Shakespeare is not as complicated as you may have been told since the age of four. Don’t come in with the preconception that it’s beyond your understanding. If we didn’t understand King Lear, it would have died four hundred years ago. There is stuff that is complicated, but it’s just the complexity of a play that actually has something to say about humanity. That’s part of the thrill of going to the theatre. With Shakespeare’s language, I think the key is to listen with your own instincts. You’ll hear things in the language that you may not absolutely understand. There’s stuff that I don’t absolutely understand, and I’ve gone through it hundreds of times. I hear a line and suddenly think “oh it could mean that.” That’s the thrill of it. So trust in your instinct to hear things in a different way. You’ll hear something and think “that could mean that” – and it probably does. So believe yourself.
EXPLORATIONS
-9-
Bard on the Beach Theatre Calgary is proud to partner with Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival. After a five-week run in the Max Bell Theatre, this production of King Lear will transfer to Vancouver for the summer, playing in repertory at Bard on the Beach for thirteen weeks from June 18 to September 20. It’s a thrilling opportunity for Theatre Calgary to collaborate with a world-renowned producer of Shakespeare plays and to bring our artistry to a national audience.
An aerial view of Bard on the Beach (Photoblimp)
Bard on the Beach is Western Canada’s largest not-for-profit professional Shakespeare festival. More than 100,000 playgoers attended the Festival in 2014, and well over a million people have experienced Bard since it was founded in 1990. Each summer, the Festival offers Shakespeare plays, related dramas, and unique music events in two modern performance tents in the magnificent waterfront setting of Vancouver’s Vanier Park, just across False Creek from downtown. The Mainstage Theatre tent, where King Lear will be presented, is a true highlight of the Festival – its remarkable open-ended design means that the actors perform against a spectacular backdrop of mountains, sea, and sky.
EXPLORATIONS
- 10 -
Three productions join King Lear in the 2015 Bard on the Beach season, which runs from June 4 to September 26. Scott Bellis, the Fool in King Lear, directs The Comedy of Errors; Daryl Cloran, recent director of Liberation Days at Theatre Calgary, leads a Jazz Age production of Love’s Labour’s Lost; and Christopher Gaze, Bard’s artistic director and founder, directs the world premiere stage adaptation of Shakespeare’s Rebel by C.C. Humphreys, which will feature many King Lear cast members. With romance, mischief, intrigue, and tragedy, it’s sure to be an exciting summer on the beach.
Todd Thomson and Robert Olguin in Twelfth Night, 2013 (David Blue)
Look around the Theatre Calgary lobby for photos from Bard on the Beach’s 25-year history.
EXPLORATIONS
- 11 -
Who Was William Shakespeare? The playwright Ben Jonson (1572–1637), one of William Shakespeare’s contemporaries, heralded his colleague and competitor as "not of an age but for all time." Centuries later, Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)
declared
that
"Shakespeare is crude, immoral, vulgar, and senseless." Like so many, both writers clearly held strong opinions about the most famous playwright in history. But who really was William Shakespeare, the man widely regarded as the greatest writer of the English language? There aren’t many historical records
about
A portrait of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s
early life. He was born to father John Shakespeare, a successful glover and a prominent alderman, and mother Mary Arden in the town of Stratfordupon-Avon, England. The church record of Shakespeare’s baptism says he was born on April 23, 1564, and he presumably attended the local grammar school, but little else is known of his youth. The next existing record of him is his marriage to Anne Hathaway in 1582. The following year she bore a daughter, Susanna, followed two years later by the twins Judith and Hamnet. In 1592, Shakespeare is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene as an actor, poet, and playwright. By 1594, he joined up with one of the most successful acting troupes in London, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. In 1599, the troupe lost the lease on their theatre, but by that point they were
EXPLORATIONS
- 12 -
wealthy enough to build a theatre of their own on the South Bank of the Thames. They called it "The Globe." When James I came to the throne in 1603, the troupe was newly designated as the King's Men.
Shakespeare
and
his
company entertained the King and the public for another ten years until June 19, 1613, when a cannon fired during Henry Diagram of The Swan, a competitor of The Globe that had a similar design, 1596 VIII set fire to the Globe’s thatch roof and burned the theatre to the ground. Shakespeare retired to his home in Stratford and kept writing until his death in 1616 at the age of 52. Few authors have been the subject of more scholarly debate than Shakespeare. General consensus today attributes 37 plays and 154 sonnets to Shakespeare, while arguments rage over which plays may have been collaborations with other playwrights. In fact, some scholars even argue that someone other than William Shakespeare must have written his works, believing that Shakespeare’s plays are too sophisticated and contain too much detailed and intimate knowledge of life in the court to have been written by a glover’s son from Stratford-upon-Avon. These “anti-Stratfordians” offer a wide array of other candidates such as Sir Francis Bacon or Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, as potential authors of Shakespeare’s plays. With the lack of historical records, we may never fully resolve the debates over the identity of William Shakespeare and the authorship of his plays. But nevertheless, there is widespread agreement that he is among the greatest writers produced by Western civilization. His plays have endured for more than 400 years and still challenge and delight us today.
EXPLORATIONS
- 13 -
The Origins of King Lear Shakespeare’s plays were often inspired by source materials that provided ideas for characters and storylines. Here are some of the sources that have been identified for King Lear:
Historia Regum Britanniae, a 12th-century treatise by Geoffrey of Monmouth in which “Leir” is said to have ruled Britain c. 800 BC.
The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1587) by Ralph Holinshed, which is the primary source for many of Shakespeare’s history plays, as well as parts of King Lear, Macbeth, and Cymbeline.
The political poetry collection The Mirror for Magistrates (1587) and Edmund Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queene (1589).
A play called The True Chronicle History of King Leir, and his three daughters, Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordella that was performed by the Queen’s Men and the Lord Sussex’s Men in 1594 and published in 1605. Its author is unknown. This version has a happy ending and does not contain the Earl of Gloucester subplot, which Shakespeare may have derived from Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia (1590).
The earliest known performance of Shakespeare’s King Lear was before the court of King James I at Whitehall on December 26, 1606. It is believed that Richard Burbage originated the title role, and, as was the tradition and law of the time, the daughters were all played by young men. There were two original publications of the script: the Quarto edition of 1608 and 1619, and the Folio edition of 1623. The two editions differ from each other at many points: the Quarto contains 300 lines not found in the Folio, while the Folio has 100 lines that are not in the Quarto. There is some evidence that Shakespeare himself made these revisions, but since no copies of Shakespeare’s papers survive, it’s impossible to say for sure. The performance script for the Theatre Calgary production is adapted from both the Quarto and the Folio.
EXPLORATIONS
- 14 -
The title page from the 1608 Quarto edition of Shakespeare's King Lear
EXPLORATIONS
- 15 -
Nahum Tate’s “Improvement” of King Lear King Lear is recognized today as one of the greatest English plays ever written, but it all but disappeared from the English stage between 1681 and the early 1800s. During this time, Shakespeare’s play was replaced by an alternate version written by Irish poet Nahum Tate. In the dedication to his play The History of King Lear, Tate described Shakespeare’s original play as “a Heap of Jewels, unstrung and unpolisht; yet so dazzling in their Disorder that [he] soon perceiv’d [he] had seized a Treasure.” Tate wrote that he had set out to “rectifie what was wanting in the Regularity and Probability of the Tale.” Tate used much of Shakespeare’s original dialogue, but modified the play in many ways, most notably by adding a romantic subplot between Cordelia and Edgar and a happy ending in which Lear regains the throne. As well, the character of the Fool is entirely removed. It’s difficult to imagine King Lear undergoing such immense revision, but in the late 1600s, the ending was thought to be too upsetting and Shakespeare was not yet considered to be the master playwright we acknowledge today. It was not uncommon for his works to be significantly altered, if they were presented at all. Many great actors of the era, including Thomas Betterton and David Garrick, became famous for their portrayals of Lear, but it bears noting that they were performing in Tate’s adaptation. In 1823, actor Edmund Kean made the first attempt to restore Shakespeare’s tragic ending, but audiences were not pleased and he quickly reverted to the happy ending. In 1834, William Charles Macready presented a “restored” version of the text (still without the character of the Fool) and audiences began to respond favourably. Then in 1845, actor Samuel Phelps restored the complete and original Shakespearean text to the stage, reviving a play now regarded as a masterpiece for its portrayal of the human condition and depth of its tragedy.
EXPLORATIONS
- 16 -
Illuminating King Lear A Note from Production Dramaturg Shari Wattling I have worked on many productions of Shakespeare’s plays in my career, but when Dennis Garnhum first mentioned King Lear as a possible production this season,
my heart leaped and skipped a beat
simultaneously. Any Shakespeare play is a marvelous challenge due to the size of his stories, the scale of his characters, and the intricacy of his language. But in my humble opinion, King Lear is truly the granddaddy of them all. As the production dramaturg, my role is to act as a consultant and facilitator for the creative interpretation of the script and story for the production. This includes historical research, script editing, record keeping, and meetings – lots and lots of meetings to discuss the huge realm of this story, the characters, the designs, and the overall experience we want to illuminate in our production.
Director Dennis Garnhum, production dramaturg Shari Wattling, and assistant director Mike Griffin meet about King Lear (Richard Lam)
EXPLORATIONS
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Director Dennis Garnhum and I began our discussions about the play about a year and a half ago. Our first order of business was to agree upon some foundations from which to build the production. Would this be a modernized production of Shakespeare’s play, or would we remain more traditional in our approach? Would Lear be portrayed literally as a king, or reinterpreted perhaps as a foreign dictator, politician, or corporate executive? Does Lear’s “madness” represent a preexisting condition (i.e. emerging senility), or does his affliction arise from the events of the play itself? So many more questions abounded, but before moving forward, we needed to find a starting point. Through our early conversations, three central concepts emerged: 1. This production would be set in a traditional period for the play and Lear would be an actual king. 2. Our exploration would focus on the family – a father and his three daughters – and how the events unfold from personal hurts and barriers that exist between them. 3. Lear's madness would not be founded on a diagnosis of a particular illness (eg. Alzheimer's), but rather his mental decline will emerge in connection to the emotions and events of the play. With these thoughts in mind, Dennis and I began editing the script in April of 2014. Our goal was to emphasize clarity of the language for a modern ear, enhance the action of the story for our production, and create a version for a cast of 15 actors. After the first edited draft, many questions remained unanswered. At what point in the Middle Ages would our story take place? There are many more characters required than actors, so how much double-casting (actors playing more than one part) would we employ? Where would we put the intermission? There are several inconsistencies in Shakespeare’s own timeline of events. The Fool, a central character, disappears part way through the play with no real explanation. The final lines of the play are delivered by Albany in the 1608 Quarto edition and Edgar in the 1623 Folio edition – which also disagree
EXPLORATIONS
- 18 -
on around 400 other lines of text. It was clear after the first edit that we had much to discuss as we delved further into our interpretation. Many more drafts passed between me and Dennis over the next couple of months. We didn’t have all the answers yet, but we arrived at a draft of the script that addressed many of the our first questions. We were fortunate that Shakespeare by the Bow ran during the summer months, and we asked the cast of The Comedy of Errors to do a one-day reading and workshop of the script. Not only did it give us a chance to hear the edited script out loud, but Dennis also staged the opening and closing scenes of the play as an experiment for a few of his ideas. It was great fun to start working on our feet, and soon afterwards, Dennis began to cast the actual production. Of course, we already had our King Lear – the incomparable Benedict Campbell. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Benedict in many productions at the Shaw Festival and couldn’t have been more thrilled. He is, in a word, extraordinary. September arrived, our season started, and the creative process began to speed up. We began meeting with our design team. Pam Johnson’s set design has an additional challenge because it must accommodate two very different venues: our traditional proscenium stage and the open-ended Mainstage Tent at Bard on the Beach. Dennis shared a few images of inspiration: leaves, frost, stone castles, and copper-coloured earth. These images became very important – they inform the design, which focuses on the waning days of warmth in early autumn, foreshadowing the cold, darker precipice of winter. As design discussions continued, I suggested that we narrow our era down to the early 14th century, just prior to the Hundred Years’ War. Much like Shakespeare, we don’t focus too hard on details of historical accuracy, but it’s useful to have a specific time period as a leaping off point. In December, we held a “design weekend” with our entire design team along with our technical director, producer, me, Dennis, and our assistant director Mike Griffin. The aim over the course of two days was to explore
EXPLORATIONS
- 19 -
Image from wikimedia
possibilities.
We
experimented
with
the
large
storm
sequence,
Gloucester’s eye-gouging, Kent being put in the stocks, and a few of the more important staging questions. We spent the weekend going over every scene and playing on our feet with fans, leaves, fabrics, furniture, sounds, and music to get our imaginations working. At the end of the weekend, we had a ton of new ideas to inform the designs. Then, after all the planning and anticipation, rehearsals start up in February. As we rehearse with the acting company, more questions arise. The actors turn the characters into living people and the words spring into action. Some of our plans must adapt to embrace new discoveries. Every day is spent exploring the dimensions of this story and the remarkable truths about our human nature that Shakespeare captures so eloquently and, at times, brutally. I continue to marvel at how this 400-year-old play is speaking to us today as it spoke to audiences in ages past. As I write this, we have our first preview performance this evening. I’m so excited to sit in the theatre and hear these words and share this play with our audience.
EXPLORATIONS
- 20 -
Nobles and Peasants: The Feudal System Theatre Calgary’s production of King Lear is set in the Middle Ages, a time when European society was organized according to a hierarchical structure known as feudalism. Within this system, power revolved around the distribution of land and labour. The king was at the top of the pyramid, anointed by “divine right” directly from God. Below the king were the nobles such as dukes and earls. Members of the noble class were often related to the king through marriage. Each noble was granted a manor and a large tract of land, up to several thousand acres, in return for their loyalty and service to the king. Below this level were knights and vassals, who provided their manor lord with their military service and oversaw smaller parcels of land called fiefs.
King Nobility Knights & Vassals Peasants, Serfs, & Slaves In the largest and lowest tier of the hierarchy were peasants, serfs, and slaves. These were the people who actually farmed the land or worked as tradesmen. While free peasants could be rent-paying tenants, most members of this class were serfs and slaves, bound by law to their manor lord. This pyramid system channeled goods and services from the lower classes upwards, while the king and the upper classes were to provide protection and a lawful state for the classes below.
EXPLORATIONS
- 21 -
Jesters and Fools The figure of the court fool or jester has origins dating back to ancient times and exists in many cultures. In Britain, the image of the “motley fool” with a floppy hat, colourful tunic, and jingling bells comes from the medieval era. The fool was a regular figure in English royal and noble households up until the mid-17th century. There
were
two
different
general categories of fools at the time: the “natural” fool and the professional or “licensed” fool. Natural fools were those seen
Scott Bellis as the Fool (Trudie Lee)
as dim-witted or simple-minded, who were unfortunately mocked for their disabilities. Professional fools, in contrast, were employed to provide entertainment in the form of jokes, physical comedy, poems, songs, and humourous banter for members of the household and guests. In many cases, fools had special license to wittily criticize the actions of their masters. This freedom gave a unique status to fools and sometimes earned them positions of great trust with their master. Of course, the license to criticize also carried a constant threat of being whipped (or worse) for overstepping one’s bounds. Shakespeare often portrayed professional fools in his plays, and these characters are the sources of great wit, music, and comedy. The Shakespearean fool also tends to provide incisive commentary on the actions of other characters and wise insights on human nature.
EXPLORATIONS
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Weapons and Warfare Mike Griffin, assistant director for King Lear, worked with director Dennis Garnhum, fight directors Haysam Kadri and Karl H. Sine, and the Theatre Calgary props department to curate the medieval weaponry used in the fights and battles of the play. Here are some of his research notes: Strategy In preparation for battle, war leaders would typically have a war council meeting to lay out the plan for the battle. On the battlefield, the first stage would often be the release of the infantry and the archers, with the goal of breaking down the opponent’s formation. Once a break in formation had been achieved (and this could take some time), the cavalry would attack, capitalizing on the opposing side’s loss of cohesion. The cavalry’s position on horseback gave them a speed and height advantage over footsoldiers. When there was a retreat, the cavalry would track down the fleeing soldiers, slaughtering them from their horses.
Battle gear laid out in the rehearsal hall
EXPLORATIONS
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Weaponry Broadsword: One of the earliest of the medieval swords, the broadsword was a long, straight, two-edged blade. The blade ranged from two to three inches in width and 30 to 45 inches in length. Falchion: A one-handed, single-edged blade, the falchion had the weight of an axe but the versatility of a sword. The blade styles varied, but there was always a curve towards the tip of the blade. Falchions were thought of as a lower-calibre weapon. They were often wielded by lower-class soldiers and could be used as tools outside of war times. Dagger: A double-edged blade, the dagger was often used for stabbing and thrusting when in close proximity to target. War Hammer: The war hammer is much larger and heavier than a regular carpentry hammer, and often had a spike on the back end. War hammers had a variety of lengths. Longer hammers were used against cavalry to dismount riders, while shorter hammers were meant for close combat and could do lots of damage even without piercing the armour. Bardiche: A short polearm with a curved blade, up to to two feet long. The weight of the bardiche’s large blade meant that one would need to use two hands to wield it with authority. Bow and Arrow: A weapon powered by elasticity, the bow has been used in war and hunting for thousands of years. Bows were made from a single piece of wood, often as tall as the archer, with a string connecting both ends. Archers could carry up to 70 arrows at a time. Crossbow: The crossbow is a smaller bow mounted sideways on a stock. It shoots small arrow-like projectiles called bolts. The weapon has a mechanism that pulls the string back and holds it in place while a bolt is loaded, and a trigger to fire the bolt. The crossbow was easier to use and aim than the regular bow and could pierce through a knight’s armour, making it a powerful weapon for untrained soldiers.
EXPLORATIONS
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A Textured World An Interview with Deitra Kalyn As the costume designer for King Lear, Deitra Kalyn conceives the look for each character, and then works closely with Theatre Calgary’s in-house wardrobe team to realize her designs and fit them to the performers. With fifteen actors in the production – many of whom play multiple roles – Deitra and her team have been hard at work in the months leading up to the fun of the show. We spoke with Deitra during preview week. The production is set in the late middle ages. What excites you about the clothing of that era? It’s always exciting to design something
that’s
completely
different from our era and not what
audiences
are
used
to
seeing. The research on this era was lots of fun, and it was a challenge and a blessing to be able to have some freedom in the specific time period of the play. We decided to set it before the Hundred Years’ War for a rough timeline, but the rule on the costumes was that we would pick
King Lear (Costume rendering by Deitra Kalyn)
and choose elements from the broader medieval era that would made everyone look amazing. You'll notice that there is quite a mix of fashion details in this show, and if you really took a fine-toothed comb to it, you'd see that we are spanning about 350 years of fashion in this one show! What visual inspirations did you find for this production? I kept coming back to images that had an ombré gradient. I was particularly interested in images that ombré from black to white, with all
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the grey in between. I also had a ton of images of interesting textures. That was the name of the game on this show – lots
Ombré: a fabric pattern where a light colour blends gradually into a dark colour
of texture. There’s lots of battle gear and stage combat in King Lear. What challenges does that give for you as a costume designer? Any time there are fights on stage, first and foremost you need to make sure that the actors are safe. Especially with a show set in this era, with all the weapons and chain mail and helmets. We also have to make sure that the actors don’t overheat. The era requires that the costumes have a layered and textured feel, so we have to create that look while still giving the actors enough mobility and comfort to do the movement they need to do. So it’s a checklist: the actor’s safety comes first, then the actor’s ability to move, and after that comes what I’d like to see aesthetically.
Sometimes
it’s
English and French soldiers (costume rendering by Deitra Kalyn)
necessary to alter my design in order to maintain safety on stage. Changes in status are important for the play. How do you show these changes with costuming choices? We’ve done this a few ways. We really pushed the colour transition over the course of the show. It starts quite bright and cheery and then goes into a really dark world – then we bring in more white towards the end. We gave the most rich and luxurious textures to the high-status characters –
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the king, his daughters, the noblemen – and put more rough and rugged textures on the servants and knights. We did quite a lot of breakdown on those costumes. The breakdown on the knights’ costumes, for example, is much rougher than anything we did on Lear's. We wanted to set the high-status characters apart visually by making them
Breakdown: the process of making costume pieces look aged or dirty
look cleaner. Which costume are you most excited to see on stage? I have small details in all of the costumes that excite me. I especially like the leather work that was created – I get nerdy about the sheer amount of work that goes into details like that. Honestly, I like to see all the parts working together. I get most excited when the actors are in their full garb – belt, gloves, sword, caps – and all the parts come together to make a really believable look.
The Fool and Cordelia (Costume renderings by Deitra Kalyn)
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The Wheel of Fortune “The wheel has come full circle.” –Edmund in King Lear The idea of Fortune’s Wheel is frequently referred to in King Lear. A common motif in medieval art and literature, Fortune is often depicted allegorically as a blindfolded goddess, spinning a great wheel on
which
man’s
fate
is
determined. At the turning of her wheel, some are destined to rise, while others will suffer misfortune. In the pages of a 13th-century manuscript of the Carmina Burana (which was later set to music in the wellknown classical composition by Carl Orff), the four human figures on the wheel are given the labels regnabo (I shall reign), regno (I reign), regnavi (I have reigned) and sum sine regno (I
An image of the Wheel of Fortune from a 13th-century illuminated manuscript of the Carmina Burana
am without a kingdom). King Lear undergoes a dramatic fall from fortune over the course of the play. In fact, all of the characters start at some point on Fortune’s Wheel and their journeys bring them upwards or downwards as the action of the play unfolds. For example, the villainous Edmund rises from the very bottom to the top, only to topple downwards once again. Ultimately, it’s up to each audience member to decide whether the fates of the characters are sealed by fate or determined by their own actions.
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Elizabethan Astrology In the first act of King Lear, the Earl of Gloucester refers to “these late eclipses in the sun and moon” and suggests that they “portend no good to us.” This is often used as evidence that Shakespeare wrote the play in the late autumn or winter of 1605, since there had been a lunar eclipse on September 27 of that year, followed by a total solar eclipse two weeks later on October 12. To the Elizabethans, astrological observations were very important. In general, they believed that the earth was at the centre of the universe and that the movements of the planets and stars had profound influence on human behavior and world events. An event such as an eclipse or a passing comet could be interpreted as an omen of disaster. In fact, the word disaster literally refers to an unfavourable position of the stars. It was customary for nobles and upper-class families to hire astrologers to write horoscopes for their households based on maps of the skies. Astrologers were consulted about the best dates for elections, coronations, weddings, and baptisms. Even personal matters such as financial planning and medical treatment might be decided by consulting the stars. Shakespeare makes hundreds of references to astrology in his plays. At the dawn of the 17th century, traditional belief in astrology began to dwindle in religious, political, and scientific circles, but it remained strong in common thinking. The older characters in King Lear (Gloucester, Kent, and Lear) often relate their circumstances to the order of the skies. But the younger villain Edmund ridicules the idea that “we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars,” preferring instead to trust his fate to his own free will. It’s impossible to say for certain whether Shakespeare himself believed in astrology, but as a prolific and popular playwright seeking to please his audience, he often took his cue from common opinion and the “hot topics” of his day.
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Conversation Starters
Who’s most responsible for the tragic events of King Lear?
Does love need to be spoken out loud?
Which do you believe in, fate or free will?
Is Lear mad? At which point or points in the play?
What duties do children have towards their aging parents?
What could you do to prevent intergenerational strife in your family?
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where someone else had a job or a possession that you thought you deserved? What did you do?
Like many characters in classical drama, both Lear and Gloucester gain a better understanding of the world they live in after losing everything. Have you ever learned something important from loss?
The Royal Reading List Back in the fall, we asked Benedict Campbell what books he was reading as he started to prepare for the title role in King Lear. Here are a few:
Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda, an award-winning Canadian novel that tells an epic 17th-century tale through the eyes of a Jesuit missionary, a teenage Iroquois girl, and a grieving Huron warrior.
Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, a novel that transports the story of King Lear to a modern-day farm in Iowa.
Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman, which tells the true story of a clinically insane man who contributed nearly ten thousand definitions to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Peter Brook’s The Empty Space, the English theatre director’s classic reflection on deadly, holy, rough, and immediate theatre.
Another suggestion is Christopher Moore’s Fool, an inventive and irreverent novel that tells the story of the play from the Fool’s perspective.
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Movie Night There are several film versions of King Lear and countless works inspired by Shakespeare’s great tragedy. Here’s a small selection:
King Lear Dir. Michael Elliott, 1983. This made-for-TV film stars actor Laurence Olivier as Lear in one of his last performances of Shakespeare.
Ran Dir. Akira Kurasawa, 1985. This samurai epic by the grandmaster Kurosawa tells the story of a warlord who tries to divide his kingdom between his three sons. The title Ran means “rebellion” or “confused.”
King Lear Dir. Jean-Luc Godard, 1987. An eclectic, avant-garde, and very loose adaptation by the French New Wave director, this film takes place at a resort in Switzerland after a nuclear apocalypse. Burgess Meredith plays the gangster Don Learo, Molly Ringwald plays Cordelia, and Peter Sellars stars as William Shakespeare Jr. the Fifth.
King of Texas Dir. Uli Edel, 2002. Patrick Stewart stars as cattle baron John Lear in this adaptation set in the Old West.
King Lear Dir. Trevor Nunn, 2008. Ian McKellen stars in this film version featuring the cast of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2007 production. Watch it online: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/king-lear-watch-the-play/487/
Game of Thrones Based on the books by George R.R. Martin, 2011-present. The HBO series features as much bloodshed and betrayal as any Shakespearean tragedy, and like our production of King Lear, it’s set in a visual landscape inspired by late Middle Ages.
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Sources Cardona, Debra. “King Lear Study Guide.” Prepared for the Classical Theatre of Harlem, 2006. Crystal, Ben. Springboard Shakespeare: King Lear Before, During, After. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Davies, Oliver Ford. Playing Lear. London: Nick Hern, 2003. Dersin, Denise, ed. What Life Was Like in the Age of Chivalry. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life, 1997. Ditchfield, P.H. “Superstition, Alchemy and Astrology in Shakespeare’s Day.” In The England of Shakespeare.London: Methuen, 1917. http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/superstition.html Freeman, Neil, ed. The Applause First Folio of Shakespeare in Modern Type. New York: Applause, 2001. “The History of King Lear.” Wikipedia. Accessed Feb 4, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_King_Lear Kenyon, Sherrilyn. The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the Middle Ages. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest, 1995. Mortimer, Ian. The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England. London: Vintage, 2009. Otto, Beatrice K.. Fools are Everywhere: The Court Jester Around the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/640914.html Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Ed. R.A. Foakes. London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare (3rd series), 1997. Stratford Festival. “King Lear Study Guide.” 2014. http://www.stratfordfestival.ca/education/teachers.aspx?id=8610