The alternate opinion. The different view. People get amazingly angry if you apply your own thoughts and feelings onto a popularly accepted figure. How dare you think Luke Skywalker could be gay. So what if you think Juliet had depression? King Lear had PTSD? Representation matters, but doesn't always come across as ‘good representation’, especially given the viewer’s own interpretation. The public opinion (and my own, eventually) can depend highly on what the writer and director emphasize in their own respective works. King Lear is excellent subject matter for these such gestures, both the play as a text and Joseph Haj’s Guthrie stageplay. Good, wholehearted, genuine representation not just for the controversy or advertisement, is something that can only come from the creator’s behalf, and is caused by the reader demanding more from the story. It’s a reader-writer ouroboros; Director’s decisions influence how an audience sees a play, while what the audience wants to see influences what the director adds to the work.

Reading a play, instead of sitting down and watching a play, requires effort on behalf of the reader themselves. Instead of just sitting there, absorbing, flitting in-and-out of the boring parts, the reader must employ their own imagination. Where are the emphasised words when someone is giving a long winded speech? What does this character look like? Where are they in relation to each other, be it physical or emotional distance? The reader controls the story in a way, like if they refuse to read further during a disturbing scene. Say, the moment in which Gloucester’s eyes are, “put out (...) by Cornwall” (pg. 73). The reader could decide not to include that when they recount the story to themselves. It’s easy to launch facts out the window for one’s own pleasure. With a play, nothing is put on pause to satisfy the viewer. There’s no “Alright, this is a good place to stop for the night.” To this, reading a play becomes a chore, and watching a play becomes a night on the town. More important, it can be seen as your own interpretation vs. someone else’s interpretation. The play can be modified to one’s own liking, say such as editing out a gory scene here or there.

The audience can and is supposed to gather their own interpretations. Multiple people with multiple ideas about how the world works gives us multiple impressions about the same character. Now, how does that come across when we’re viewing a play, with only one director and one outlook? The reason why people get so enraged when you change one thing-one tiny thing to the text, is that it could possibly erase theirs. Many people think of Ian Mckellen as their go-to Lear, for me personally it’s Kurosawa’s excellent film-adaptation. The point is it that it’s different and nearly almost cemented in our minds-people are worried that they’re not going to be heard over the loud roar of popularity. It could be just the opposite too; The idea that it’s always been this way, and we should continue to use this make and model ‘till the end of time. Both of them are ‘wrong’ in a sense- We should always be pushing the narrative, but other interpretations aren’t ‘better’ or ‘above’ others, they’re simply different. The ouroboros is never-ending, in a constant state of reader-eating and author-being eaten.

In essence, the play is your own to do with what you wish. You can certainly say that this character looks like x, behaves like y, and is altogether z despite the evidence from the actual text. It’s tantalizing, the feeling of authoritative power. The ability to scream “KING LEAR IS BISEXUAL” without anyone to contradict you, so long as you don’t post your opinions online. However, when you do take the initiative- when you have the courage to voice those thoughts- people become indirectly influenced.It worms it’s way into the culture, becoming more and more normalised. Deviation from the norm is something new to add to this older work of art- the present keeps the past alive.

One of the reasons that Shakespeare is so popular, to this day, is that he’s given interpreters an easy out; Most of his characters are archetypes, rather than fully and wholly created. They have enough traits for us to get an impression of them, but enough missing details to fill in the blanks, often personally. The Romantic Hero. The Mad King. The Evil Step-Sisters. Shakespeare has an entire character in King Lear just called “The Fool”. That’s it. No surnames or even distinct features apart from his witty banter. It becomes easy for almost anyone to slip in-and-out of this role, all you need are the lines and a few good improvisational jokes. The Fool we had at the guthrie that night accused a man in the audience of the crime of adultery, much to the delight of his peers. The relatability extended beyond the ephemeral realm of the stage to some random dude. Some random dude that exist at this time and place, here in 2017. The connection between past and present is one of the easiest connections to make when the writer is influenced by the reader, and is initiated by the production of a play.

This particular production of King Lear also had some fantastic ideas, ideas that might be better suited for a movie than a stage production. Haj had a cool way of emphasizing Lear’s madness; As lightning struck in the storm that lear had wandered out to, a loud tone played emphasizing the deafness that occurs after a loud thunderclap. Lear is alone in these stretches of discombobulation, the only other thing heard is his inner narration and surreality of the stage and it’s lighting. This was Haj’s cut that made for a more visually appealing lear. The idea of sudden deafness probably has more modern connections, such as the idea of the deafness that comes after an explosion, along with that singular tone. In the scene where Glouster has his eyes ripped out, Cornwall takes one of the eyes and plops it into a nearby glass of alcohol. It was obvious the director wanted the audience to notice; Cornwall dropped it in with a frivolous gesture. I would've liked to see the camera angles that Haj would have played with, because his writing and stage directions seem more suited for the big screen. He has characters exiting north, south, east and west, making me think that he would have liked a bit more of a forced perspective. Not that this wouldn’t make for a wonderful movie, or even be a bad choice of director; It’s the essence of stage versus movie, a still standing audience versus a free range camera. While visually appealing, it was somewhat awkward in execution due to limited angular perspective.

As an audience member, you don’t get to switch seats. Not only would this be rude, but also distracting for everyone else. You can’t admire a close up of Lear’s madness, then walk all the way to the back aisle to get a view of the whole crew onstage. Our perspective is highly limited, and Haj tried his best to work with that. I could tell that he wanted you to look at x for y scene, and so he used more conventional ways of highlighting them. The fool was standing on a table or higher platform for most of his lines. Cordelia wore a stunning amount of white to differentiate from her darker-color palette sisters. Lear was often taller than everyone onstage, especially when Gloucester sheltered the group of loonies- He stood taller than everyone else. Hieratic scale has a lot to do with it, Haj was obviously thinking about the composition of the scenes he was creating. It came off as intuitive. As a member of the audience, I could tell who I was supposed to be looking at, and who I was supposed to ‘root for’ in a sense. No matter where I sat I would have probably gotten a good understanding about what was going on-upstage or down. The director thought about the details like this, and it shows well in his work.

Haj had the entire production not set in medieval england, but in a more contemporary setting, most of my class would have guessed WW1 or 2. This put everyone in a more contemporary dress, but the plot was more or less the same due to lack of modern conventions. This made the scene in which Gloucester was sitting, listening to battle, all the more serious. The actual fight was offstage, but the audience and Gloucester himself (who was recently blind) could hear guns and men screaming in pain. Giving this battle a modern twist gives our minds a lot more when it comes to the imagination; The idea of tear gas, heavy machinery, tanks, limbs being blown off, bombs dropping in the trenches- It’s all implied without being shown. The only person is onstage is blind, and merely sits there, taking in the horrifying sounds of battle. It’s a powerful scene executed beautifully onstage, and is a well-portrayed to the wide-eyed watchers.

Describing the interactions of the Fool (Armin Shimerman) and King Lear (Nathaniel Fuller) himself- The interesting thing that this production of the play did was have Lear be the unawares murderer of his own Fool. He straight up killed him with a knife onstage, in an unassuming fit of madness. This not only paints Leer in a more complex light, but also puts the audience in a new position; The play forces us to take sides. Does leer deserve to die in the end, or does he still retain some innocence in his state of madness? Now the audience has to be engaged- Everyone knows that both Lear and Cordelia are fated to die within the play, but does the play justify his death? Will it gloss over that unimportant detail, or will it tie into the end somehow, thus altering the work itself? These were the questions, more or less, that were asked during the play’s intermission. Haj himself only leads us to acquisitions with the line, “My fool has been hanged”, but doesn't really follow through in the end. This makes the play more open to interpretation, but not so much resolute.

A lot of casting decisions were confusing, especially Within the Gloucester family and Lear’s daughters. Not to say that these people weren't phenomenal actors, but just general genetics doesn't make sense, and is somewhat estranging when viewed within the context of the play. Goneril (Kate Nowlin) was more white than her two sisters (Sun Mee Chomet and Kim Wong), which isn’t really possible with a 1:1 ratio of white-dad-asian-mom. They would all look mixed, not just two out of the three. The casting with having a black Gloucester (James A. Williams) and a black Edmund (Thomas Brazzle), but a completely white Edgar (Nathan Barlow) makes no sense. It’s also somewhat racist; Having the ‘evil’ brother be represented as dark and ‘modern’ (the way he states his lines has heavy AAVE tones) and the ‘good’ brother be represented as white is problematic in a lot of ways. They apparently had an actual black actor to play the part of Edgar, but he was either sick or couldn’t be apart of the show I saw that night. Taking that into consideration, I can excuse the aspect of unintentional racism on the part of the theatre. However, when Edgar first arrived on the stage, I thought, “Is that REALLY Edgar?” It broke the illusion and took me out of the play. This made Edgar as an unbelieveable character for the duration of my watching. I can’t say that for the rest of the audience, but I know people still had a good time.

The implications of a gay Cordelia (Kim Wong) by casting a POC female actor to play the role of France (Shá Cage) is an entertaining idea on it’s own. However, it wasn't overtly gay and France was never seen again, besides in the beginning scene. France’s actress was, but she was reprised to short lines and small appearances. It was hints, here and there, nothing extremely groundbreaking and new for King Lear. Lear himself was kinda gay and that was good too, but he and his lovers die-what are you going to do. Trying to inject a ‘modern’ philosophy into this play can be difficult, especially for a tragedy like King Lear. The modern connections should have been centered around the idea of something more relevant besides the idea of ‘gayness’; Perhaps, the idea of Cordelia and her sisters as caretakers and ‘mothers’ to Lear. This leaves the audience to make their own connections to the unpleasantries of these volatile times. Just throwing random gay atrophies in the play doesn't make it immediately likeable, it’s inconsistent and shying away from the real issues at hand. It’s subtle, but I think the director merely wanted the claim that this Lear was the homosexual hip Lear that all the kids like. Adding on homosexual relations to a popular play because you want to is one thing, but adding them on merely for publicity is another. Haj probably wanted to appeal to a younger audience, and struggled to find an actual relevant connection to resonate with every audience member. It shows through, and not in a good way.

Haj could’ve installed a real sense of fear but instead opted out for a more ‘benevolent’ Lear; His first reactions to when Cordelia told him the truth were violent. He slammed tables in a childish manner, no holds barred when an adult male got angry. His streak of rage could have been emphasized with him throwing tantrums like a toddler, with him throwing fragile things and breaking them to physically show off his power.. Expensive sets maybe, but anything to get the point across. Rather, Haj has his madness depicted as slowly growing inside him; Lear’s most violent act in the story is when he unknowingly kills his own fool onstage, blinded by his mental state. The fact that Lear just kills someone in cold blood suggests to me that his rage is ill contained and that Lear needs it out of him somehow, no matter what it takes. I feel like Haj could have demonstrated this to the audience just one notch more, like turning the knob all the way up to 11. I understand that he wanted a more restrictive Lear, and perhaps the violent streak in me would have come across as too much to everyone, including every other violent gesture in the play. This Lear was excellent, but perhaps just a bit too mild for me.

All in all, the play was a rousing success and an excellent night for the theatre. It engaged the audience and had us ask questions of the piece and of ourselves. King Lear itself is great for reflection,on the behalf of the writer, reader, and audience member. I consume the media before me, and create ideas and interpretations to be implemented the next time a writer attempts this play. The never-ending cycle continues.

Bibliography:

1. Shakespeare, William, and Grace Ioppolo. King Lear: an Authoritative Text, Sources, Criticism, Adaptations, and Responses. New York, W.W. Norton, 2008.
2. Shakespeare, William. “King Lear.” 3 Mar. 2017, Minneapolis, Guthrie Theatre.