king lear backstage

backstage series • www.PeoplesLight.org • king lear

King LearShakespeare’s King Lear appears on the Main Stage

at People’s Light & Theatre in Malvern from March 3-28, 2010. Shakespeare’s five-act play is big. The cast is large — 17 people — and the story encompasses greatemotions and extreme actions. Preparations for this ambitious play began at People’s Light two years ago and included bringing in Shakespeare scholar Deborah T. Curren-Aquino (consultant for the Folger ShakespeareLibrary) for a three-hour script analysis workshop on the play. It has been exciting for us to delve deeply intothis magnificent play. Now we look forward to sharing it with you, our audiences.

Performances for School GroupsIn addition to the performances in March, People’s

Light will host schools from our Project Discovery High School program in February for Encountering Lear.These 10 a.m. performances will include key scenes from the play as well as interactive “bridges” that highlight plot, character, and language. Shorter in length than the full King Lear (which doesn’t fit into the field trip schedule for most schools), EncounteringLear will give students an opportunity to talk with thecast about themes in the play that touch their lives: sibling rivalry, clashes with a parent, favoritism, and issues of loyalty, betrayal, and identity. EncounteringLear was written by Elizabeth Webster Duke and directed by Samantha Bellomo.

Texting for TicketsPeople’s Light is also offering students an opportunity

to return in March to see the full production of King Learfor free. This year for the first time, People’s Light has set

up a way for students to “text for tickets.” Students whocome to Encountering Lear will receive instructions onhow to text a message to receive free tickets.

The People’s Light & Theatre Company’sproduction is part of Shakespeare for a New Generation, a national initiative sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts incooperation with Arts Midwest.

Thank you to the NEA! To find out more about Shakespeare for a New Generation, please visit www.Shake-speareinAmerican-Communities.org. ★

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Act IKing Lear announces his

plans to retire. He will divide his kingdom among his threedaughters Goneril (married tothe Duke of Albany), Regan(married to the Duke of Cornwall) and Cordelia (soughtin marriage by both the Duke of Burgundy and the King of

France). He demands that hisdaughters declare their lovefor him; the most devoteddaughter will receive thelargest share of the king-dom. Goneril and Regantry to outdo each other

in saying that theylove Lear most.

Cordelia (Lear’s favorite daughter) distrusts her sisters’ declarations and refuses to play this game. She tells Lear thatas a daughter she is bound by duty to love her father. Furiousat her seeming lack of feeling, Lear disowns and banishesher, giving his entire kingdom to Goneril and Regan. The Earl of Kent urges Lear to reconsider his rash action. Further enraged by this interference, Lear banishes Kent as well. Lear summons the Duke of Burgundy and the King of Franceto inform them that Cordelia is now penniless. Impressed byCordelia’s honesty and character, the King of France decidesto marry her without a dowry. They depart for France.

Meanwhile, Edmund (the illegitimate son of the Earl ofGloucester) has devised a plot against Edgar, Gloucester’s legitimate son. As the bastard son, Edmund has no socialstanding or right to an inheritance. Edmund composes a counterfeit letter to convince his father that Edgar is a traitor, and Gloucester falls for the trick.

Goneril and Albany are the first to host Lear but thearrangement goes badly. Lear quarrels with her householdand Goneril resents the rowdy behavior of Lear’s soldiers.Kent, who still remains loyal to Lear, arrives in disguise.Lear, not recognizing Kent, agrees to employ him as an aide. After a ferocious argument with Goneril, Lear leaves to stay with his daughter Regan.

Act IIAt the Earl of Gloucester’s castle, Edmund convinces

Edgar to flee, then wounds himself to pretend that Edgar has stabbed him. Unexpectedly, Regan and her husbandCornwall arrive at Gloucester’s castle. As a messenger ofLear, Kent arrives at Gloucester’s castle where he encountersOswald, who is carrying a letter from Goneril to Regan. Accusing Oswald of being “against the King,” Kent fightshim. Cornwall puts Kent’s legs in the stocks, which is a grave offense against Lear since Kent is in his service.

Edgar, in flight, disguises himself as a mad beggar and calls himself “Poor Tom.” Lear and the Fool arrive at Gloucester’s (after not having found Regan at her home)and are shocked to find Kent in the stocks. Goneril arrivesand joins Regan in insulting Lear. They declare that he will only be allowed to stay with them if he follows their instructions and dismisses his personal soldiers. Full ofcurses and grief, Lear exits just as a storm is gathering.

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Costume Design for Lear, Act I

Tom of Bedlam

In 1247 a convent was founded just outside the London wall for the order of St. Mary of Bethlehem. Over the centuries it became first a general hospital and then a hospital for the mentally ill. In 1547 King Henry VIII granted Bethlehem Hospital, now known as Bedlam, to the city of London as an asylum for the mentally deranged. Shakespeare refers toBedlam and the “Bedlam beggars,” commonly known by the generic name “Tom O’Bedlams” in several of his plays.Edgar takes the name “Poor Tom” to disguise himself as destitute and mentally deranged.F

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Summary of Acts III, IV, and V (Spoiler Alert!)Cordelia arrives in Dover with military forces from France to aid

her father.

Lear rages in the tremendous storm; Kent finally guides him into a hovel for shelter where they find Poor Tom. Gloucester arrives to warn them of a plot to kill Lear and tells them to depart to Doverimmediately where they will be protected by the French.

Gloucester is declared a traitor by Edmund,Cornwall, and Regan. Cornwall gouges outGloucester’s eyes. To defend Gloucester, a

servant fights with Cornwall; both are killed.

Gloucester, now completely blind, is turnedout of his own castle. He learns that Edmundbetrayed him and Edgar was set up.

Edgar encounters his father Gloucester but doesn’t reveal his identity. Gloucester asks“Tom” to lead him to Dover so that he can

throw himself off of the cliffs, but Edgarkeeps him safe.

Goneril loves Edmund and despisesher husband whom she considers acoward. Regan also loves Edmund and hopes to marry him now thatCornwall is dead.

Lear receives medical care fromCordelia’s doctor and is reunited with Cordelia.

Goneril and Albany’s troops arrive in Dover and battle com-

mences between the Britishand the French. France losesand Lear and Cordelia arecaptured and sent to prison.

EXPLORING KING LEARTHROUGH IMPROVISATION

Ask students to work in pairs. Each pair decides who is “A”and who is “B.” Each pairs’ job is to keep the conversationgoing as long as possible. Have everyone work at once. Thenspotlight a few pairs to reprise their conversations for thegroup. (Students worry that they won’t remember what theysaid before — they may choose to repeat the main ideas of their previous improv or they can start fresh with a newapproach.) Improvisation means making it up!

Situation: One friend (A) has just told another friend (B)that s/he is going to drop out of high school to move to LA to try to become a movie star.

First Line: Friend B who is staying wants his/her friendto make a smarter decision. Friend B’s first line is, “You’remaking a big mistake.”

Second Line: Friend A who is leaving wants support.Friend A’s first line is, “You’re supposed to take my side.”

Read the Kent/Lear scene from Act 1, scene 1, lines 141-163and discuss how the improv is connected to the situation.

Edmund sends a Captain to the prison with a note containing some instructions.

Albany has discovered the treacherousplans of Edmund and Goneril. Edgar arrivesand kills Edmund. When her plot is exposed,Goneril rushes out. Edgar reveals thatGloucester has died.

Regan and Goneril both die — Regan is poisoned by Goneril (so that Goneril couldmarry Edmund) and Goneril commits suicide.

Before he dies, Edmund reveals that he ordered the Captain to hang Cordelia. A messenger is sent to prevent the murder but he arrives too late.

Lear enters carrying Cordelia’s dead body. In his grief for her, he dies, leaving Edgar, Albany, and Kent as the survivors. ★

Costume design for Regan, inspired by gowns by Mariano Fortuny.

Cordelia’s Name

The name Cordelia derives from the Latin word cor, meaning heart. In many earlier stories about King Leir, hisyoungest daughter is named “Cordella” or “Cordeilla.” Shakespeare may have gotten his spelling of the name from“Cordelia” in The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser (1590).F

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MAIN PLOTRed denotes disloyalty

to Lear, blue denotes

loyalty to Lear


The Fool

Shakespearean audiences would have recognized Lear’s Fool as a standard figure — a jester employed to entertain the court, and allowed to speak his mind as long as he was witty.

The Fool calls Lear “Nuncle,” a term of affection, which is a contraction of “mine Uncle.”FA

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Edgar/Poor TomGloucester’s legitimate son and

rightful heir, driven out of the king-dom by his brother’s plot. He donsthe disguise of a mad beggar andcalls himself “Poor Tom.”

EdmundGloucester’s illegitimate son;

plots to displace his brother andgain his father’s inheritance.

SUB PLOT

Earl of GloucesterNobleman in Lear’s kingdom;

father to Edgar and Edmund.

KentTrusted nobleman,

banished from Kingdomby Lear but later servesLear in disguise.

The FoolCourt jester who

serves Lear, offeringhis views cloaked injokes and puns.

Duke of CornwallRegan’s hot-tempered husband;

helps her plot against Lear.

Duke of AlbanyGoneril’s husband; he is

troubled by her disloyaltytowards her father.

OswaldGoneril’s steward; clashes

with Lear and Kent.

King of FranceImpressed by Cordelia’s

character, he marries her eventhough Lear takes away her dowry.

Duke of BurgundySuitor to Cordelia, who rejects her

when she is disowned by her father.

CordeliaLear’s youngest, favorite and

only loyal daughter. Lear banishesher when she displeases him.

ReganLear’s middle daughter, who

also turns against him. In rivalrywith Goneril for Edmund’s love.

GonerilLear’s eldest daughter, who

turns against him. She falls inlove with Edmund and scorns herhusband, whom she terms weak.

King LearThe aging ruler of Britain.

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William Shakespeare, considered England’s greatest drama-tist, was baptized on April 26, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. (His exact birth date is not known, though it is traditionallymarked on April 23.) The parish register entry for his baptismis in Latin and reads, “Guiliamus filius Johannes Shakspere”;translated “William son of John Shakspere.” His mother, MaryArden, was a wealthy landowner’s daughter; his father was aglove maker and public official. Shakespeare attended Stratfordgrammar school, where it is likely that he studied Latin, grammar, reading, writing, and recitation. He married AnneHathaway in 1582 and the couple had three children, Susanna,and twins Judith, and Hamnet.

Public records shows that as of 1594, he was a shareholder in the Globe Theatre in London. There he was a key player in London theatre, as actor and writer for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later known as the King’s Men, which performed for and was patronized by royalty. Shakespeare’splays were published and sold in his lifetime, then a rare accomplishment for a playwright.

Scholars believe that Shakespeare wrote King Learsometime between 1603-1606, after he wrote Hamletand Othello. Evidence suggests that the play was performed for King James I at Whitehall on December 26, 1606, and that the play reflects the political turmoil of the time as Jamessought to establish his power after the long reign of Queen Elizabeth I, which ended with her death in 1603. Since Elizabeth had no children, she had named her cousin James as her successor, but his succession was contested and he faced many threats on his life. In Shakespeare’s play, Lear creates a problem of succession by stepping down early and dividing his kingdom so that no one is clearly in charge.

In his late 40s, Shakespeare moved back to Stratford where he continued to write. From the texts that survive, we knowthat he wrote at least 38 plays and some 150 sonnets. He died on April 23, in 1616 and is buried in Stratford. In 1623,two members of the King’s Men printed the First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s collected plays, half of which had beenpreviously unseen by the public. The texts we read and perform today derive largely from this “First Folio.”

From Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare by Isaac Asimov.

Rankings of Nobility

In King Lear, the King divides his kingdom between two of his daughters, who are married to Dukes. The Earl of Kent and the Earl of Gloucester are close advisors to the King. The ranking of nobility goes as follows:

King, Prince, Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount, BaronFA

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Backstage series • www.PeoplesLight.org • king lear

Steve UmbergerDirector

Steve Umberger directed the 2008 premiere of SherlockHolmes & The Case of the Jersey Lily for People’s Light. Favorite credits include Wit,Proof, Falsettos, Cabaret, Picasso at the Lapin Agile,and The Tempest for theatresincluding Riverside Theatre,Barter Theatre, Florida StudioTheatre, The North CarolinaShakespeare Festival, and

Charlotte Repertory Theatre. He is the Founding Artistic Director of Charlotte Rep and a member of Actors’ Equityand The Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. ★

Origins of the King Lear StoryAs he did for many of his plays, Shakespeare drew on

familiar stories that were part of his culture for the plot ofKing Lear. Both British and Irish mythology had tales of a king called “Ler,” “Leir,” and “Lyr.” The earliest writtenaccount (from the year 1135) of the King Lear story isHistoria Regum Britanniae, by Geoffrey of Monmouth.The story appears later in many works including a historyby Raphael Holinshed and The Faerie Queene by EdmundSpenser. The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia by Sir PhilipSidney (1590) may have provided Shakespeare with themodel for the Earl of Gloucester subplot. But Shake-speare’s chief source was likely a book called The TrueChronicle History of King Leir and his Three Daughters,Gonerill, Ragan and Cordella. This work was published in1605 and the first known performance of Shakespeare’sKing Lear was in 1606.

The Great Chain of BeingShakespeare was writing during what is called the

Elizabethan era (named for Queen Elizabeth I). A widely held belief at this time was that the social orderwas divinely arranged by God as a hierarchy. Using the metaphor of the “chain of being,” people pictured God as the top of the chain, and the rest of creation in descending links below God. They considered themonarch (Queen or King) as divinely chosen by God and as the human being closest to God. The rest of the

PUNCTUATION CIRCLE

GOAL: To encourage students to feel how Shakespeare’s punctuation can provide clues for a character’s thoughts and mood. Try this exercisewith Edmund’s first monologue in King Lear, Act 1, scene 2, lines 1-22.

nobility ranked in importance below the monarch; thencame the clergy, followed by the merchants, followed by the poor, with animals at the bottom. Applying thisidea to the play, King Lear has absolute power as God’srepresentative on earth. What he says goes. But whenLear gives up his role, he breaks the chain and bringschaos to the social order. Edmund, as another example,breaks the chain by trying to rise above his station in the social order.

A Happy Ending?!Audiences today consider King Lear one of

Shakspeare’s great tragedies. But for nearly 150 years, the version that audiences saw ended happily. In 1681, a man named Nahum Tate rewrote the play. In his version, the King of France and the Fool are eliminated; Cordelia isn’t banished; Edgar and Cordelia fall in love; and the play ends happily for Cordelia and Lear! In 1823, Edmund Kean tried to revive Shakespeare’s tragic text, but audiences just laughed at it and the production closed after three days. It wasn’t until after World War II that the tragic Lear was reclaimed and began to be produced widely.

To think about: What factors might make audiences in the 20th and 21st centuries find the tragic story of King Lear meaningful? How do you see the play speaking to our time? ★

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STEP 1: Read the speech aloudin class. Who is the speaker and

what seems to be his main point?(It’s ok if the class doesn’t under-stand the whole speech. This exercise asks students to seewhat clues to meaning they cangather from the punctuation andsound of the speech.)

STEP 2: Ask class (or a selectednumber of students if space is tight) to stand in circle.

STEP 3: Instruct students to walk in one direction around the circleuntil the end punctuation of eachsentence (a period, exclamationpoint, or question mark). Begin by

walking to the left. “Thou, nature,art my goddess; to thy law / Myservices bound.” Now turn and walkto the right for the next sentence.

STEP 4: At each sentence end, the students change direction andwalk the opposite way. “Withbase?” [change direction] “Withbaseness? [change direction].

STEP 5: Discuss what ideas thispunctuation with movement gaveyou. Does this character seemcalm? agitated? angry? happy? Did you get different ideas from the character when the sentenceswere short as compared to whenthey were long?


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Graham SmithLear

Michael AllenDuke of Albany

Andrew KaneBurgundy/Ensemble

Joseph O’BrienEnsemble

Kevin BergenEdmund

Mark LazarFool

Peter DeLaurierEarl of Kent

Mary Elizabeth ScallenGoneril

David BlattEnsemble

Lenny HaasCornwall

Claire Inie-RichardsGentlewoman to Goneril

Kim CarsonCordelia

Letters Galore

There are eight letters exchanged in King Lear, and they play a key role in the plot — setting in motion betrayal, conveying secret information, and revealing evil plots. Remarkably, in Shakespeare’s day, only 8 % of the population could read, so letters were only for the privileged few.F

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Luigi SottileKing of France/Ensemble

Ahren PotratzOswald

Stephen NovelliEarl of Gloucester

Christopher MullenEdgar

Susan McKeyRegan


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At the start of the rehearsal period for each production,everyone at People’s Light (actors, designers, administra-tive staff, production personnel) gathers for a “designpresentation” about the show. The director talks about his or her approach to the play and the designersshow the set model and costume sketches and share the inspirations and research that led to their designs. Everyone leaves with the information they need to do their jobs better, whether that job is building the set, publicizing the show, selling tickets, or writing notes for the program. The notes below are from the designpresentation for King Lear (1/19/10).

From the director, Steve UmbergerThis is the second time in recent years that Steve

Umberger has directed King Lear. In 2008, he directed the play at the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival, withGraham Smith as Lear; Smith returns to the role of Lear in the production at People’s Light. Umberger is interested in how immediate the play feels — how it presents us with elemental feelings and behaviors that resonate withour own experiences. He notes that the play “capturescharacters in great moments of decision and action.” To keep the focus on the characters’ actions, he chose not to place the play in a particular period or interpretiveframework. The production combines Medieval and modern influences to convey both the flavor of an ancientroyal period and its link to us.

From the set designer, James F. Pyne, Jr.James Pyne wrote a few lines to guide his design

of the set for King Lear.An Old World; a tired Monarch,

A Gold World; ambitious heirs,

A Cold World; too few warm hearts,

A Dark World; the light too hidden,

A Metallic World; too “patina-ed” to polish,

A world too old to prosper; too envied to die.

Large panels define the set. Some of the panels slide, creating shadows and secret spaces. Other panels rotate to establish the play’s different spaces and moods. On the rotating panels, one side has gold-colored stamped tiles to reflect the world of a king; on the other side is a cold blue metallic texture, evoking the dark and cruelevents that unfold.

From the costume designer, Marla JurglanisCostume designer Marla Jurglanis knew what she didn’t

want for the Lear costumes. “Not romantic.” The play istoo harsh, too cruel for sumptuous and highly decoratedgarments, she notes. She was inspired by how somepainters and designers of the early 20th century blended Medieval and modern elements. Oneinfluence on her design was Mariano Fortuny, a modern Italian designerwho brings together strong lines(reminiscent of the Medieval silhouette) with embossed, highlytextured fabrics. Paintings by the Austrian artist Egon Schielewere also an influence. To Jurglanis, the “angularity and tension” of his work felt right for King Lear. ★

Find out More About King Lear on Our Blog!

Interviews with the CastLesson Plan for Teachers

Please visit http://peopleslight.blogspot.com/

Costume design for Goneril, inspired by gowns by Mariano Fortuny.

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Guide written by Amy Lipman and Nancy Shaw withassistance from Elizabeth Pool and David Stradley.Costume Designs by Marla J. Jurglanis. Play Artworkby Margraffix Design. Guide Design by Gary Brooks of Hollister Creative.

Copyright © 2010 The People’s Light & TheatreCompany. All rights reserved.

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