For the last few years I've composed a number of essays on various plays, and the famous Sonnets - all of which I intend to publish here, over the course of the next six months or so.
About Me
- Galway Girl
- Born and raised in one of the most famous cities in the world, and living in the UK since 1988. Gave up my professional career in 2001 to pursue my various interests, and hoping to start publishing my work in the near future. Follow me on Twitter: @GalwayGirl_88
A new film, due for release on 28th October this year, explores the ongoing argument that Shakespeare was not the author of the writings attributed to him. For many years various scholars have made this claim, but the bandwagon seeks to increase its speed with names such as Derek Jacobi becoming increasingly vociferous.
'Anonymous' advances the theory that it was Edward de Vere (Earl of Oxford) who was the pen behind the world's greatest writings. Queen Elizabeth I features in the story too, for obvious reasons, not least because there are claims that she produced several illegitimate children, thus challenging the accepted notion that she was was the 'Virgin Queen'. Paul Streitz, an American writer, claims that her first child - Edward de Vere (17th Earl of Oxford) - was sired in 1548, and is one of the main claimants to the name of Shakespeare, for those who do not believe a lad from rural Warwickshire capable of literary genius.
Even though I can't wait to see the film (and I enjoy a good 'theory' or two) I will remain unmoved in my opinion that William Shakespeare is the true author of his plays......If only he'd left more tangible evidence!
I came across this short video featuring Greg Hicks' analysis of James Barry's painting "King Lear Weeping Over the Dead Body of Cordelia":
http://channel.tate.org.uk/media/776087754001
The production photos are well worth a look too!
http://www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/king-lear/production-photos.aspx
Last Thursday evening I went to see King Lear at the newly refurbished RSC - trailer link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvA_gUDGKik
This is merely the trailer released by the RSC prior to the opening of the play's season, and even though the dead landscape, bare trees, heavy-leaden skies, and a very broken and empty Lear, left me in no doubt as to David Farr's apocalyptic setting, the stage setting was equally as scant and meagre, and reinforced the most important message of Lear's story: the breakdown of order, the end of stabilty, and the fear of what we are left with as a result.
Greg Hicks was outstanding (if a little young!) as Lear, and he delivered a very different take on his madness. Speaking to a few people at the end of the performance, we all agreed that Farr's bold move of delaying Lear's madness until he was out in the storm, made the play quite different from previous older productions. Up to that point in the play Lear was merely a tired old man, still in full possession of his faculties, but clearly jaded in terms of his duties. Happily enough he said of his abdication to his daughters: "Know that we have divided / In three our kingdom; and 'tis our fast intent / To shake all cares and business from our age, / Conferring them on younger strengths, while we / Unburdened crawl toward death. / ...".
The much acclaimed Trevor Nunn production of 2008, with the great Sir Ian McKellan playing Lear, stuck rigidly to the wider perception that Lear was mad from the outset. I'm including a link to an extract of that production in which McKellan delivers the same speech as the one in the RSC trailer above: "Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! Spout, rain! / Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters". Hicks' delivery is calm and measured whereas McKellans's is violent and clearly deranged:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn9V3gtwMrc
Farr's depiction of Lear provoked my sympathy and compassion for the troubled King on witnessing his descent into madness when he realised that he had been too trusting of his older daughters, and far too hasty in banishing his youngest. My previous belief was that he was clearly mad for even considering dividing up his kingdom between his three daughters, and that perhaps it was very unfortunate (although predictable) that things went as they did for him. I was prepared to believe that it was merely poor judgement that caused him to abdicate, but now I'm of the belief that it was his vanity - Lear's only real fault was his vanity, and he was enraged when anyone dared defy him or his decisions. For want of putting it a better way, he needed to be "sucked up to", particularly by his daughters. When he realised his youngest daughter was not prepared to "suck up" to him, he was too foolish, and blinded by his vanity, to realise that she was paying him the biggest compliment of all in her sincerity: "...I love your majesty / According to my bond, no more nor less. / " and "You have begot me, bred me, loved me. I / Return those duties back as are right fit, / Obey you, love you and most honour you. / Why have my sisters husbands, if they say / They love you all? Haply when I shall wed, / That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry / Half my love with him, half my care and duty. / Sure I shall never marry like my sisters / To love my father all. [Q].
No matter how Lear is depicted in any production, it is always uncomfortable to witness his humiliation, and the cruel alienation of him by his eldest daughters.
I've made many notes on the performance and on my own close study of the text, and I plan to post my essays to this blog. In the meantime, if you've watched the RSC trailer above you will see that the play had its first outing in February 2010 at the much loved Courtyard Theatre, the temporary home of The RSC during the renovation of the main RSC theatre, and adjoining Swan Theatre. The second outing of Lear began the day before I saw the performance and it took place on the main stage! It was wonderful to be in the main theatre but, sadly, during a conversation with one of the stewards on Friday morning, I learned that The Courtyard is now "dark" - the theatrical term for its now being closed:
I'm really sad that they've closed it. For me, The Courtyard had a very rich quality in that it was old, dusty, rustic, unfinished, and very, very atmospheric. It smelled of damp and woodsmoke, and was completely charming. I was lucky enough to see Rupert Goold's production of Romeo and Juliet in The Courtyard last August, starring the truly wonderful Mariah Gale who played Ophelia to David Tennant's Hamlet in a modern day setting, and also starring Patrick Stewart as Hamlet's uncle. And purely to nourish the romantic in me, I had to have a picture of the original stage boards on which names such as Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart, Timothy West, David Tennant, Judi Dench, et al have all tread. It's wonderful that they have conserved them in this way and that we can all walk these boards in such a truly atmospheric setting.
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