между Лиром и Макбетом

[queyntefantasye]

У меня случился некоторый затык: создаю курс по Шекспиру, и не могу выбрать между Королем Лиром и Макбетом. Обе трагедии, обе о британской истории. Я вписала было Лира, но потом вспомнила, что обязательно хотела Макбета: его так в последние годы везде ставили - явно он как-то соответствует историческому моменту. Но Лир, но Корделия... "My poor fool

Comments

[queyntefantasye]

Oh, sure. Well, for one, at this point we haven't actually seen the fool on stage since Act 3. His last words in Act 3, scene 2, are "And I'll go to bed at noon," when Lear and his companions are staying at Gloucester's (often interpreted as a prophetic reference to his own early death), and then of course they have to flee. Kent says to him at the end of the scene, "Come, help to bear thy master. / Thou must not stay behind," and that's the last time we have any reference to the fool's presence.

So of course this is where staging choices come in. What happens to the fool? do we quietly eliminate him? do we quietly retain him? I've seen a production where he does fall behind in order to delay the soldiers coming for his master, and is stabbed to death. I've seen a production where he remains as a kind of metatheatrical presence. But there's really no good way to match him to Lear's words in the closing scene, textually. Obviously, a director can make that choice and show us that the fool was hanged back in Act 3, scene 2, to resolve this problem, or to have Lear receive this news, somehow.
But in the play, only one person has just been hanged: Cordelia. Lear enters, exclaiming, "She's gone for ever. / I know when one is dead and when one lives. / She's dead as earth" (so he kind of knows she's dead, but is hoping against hope). He follows it up with the words: "I killed the slave that was a-hanging thee." So, is it possible that BOTH Cordelia and the fool have been hanged? Sure, why not. But there is only evidence in the play for one of them having been hanged. [Caius, aka Kent, is not at all dead, incidentally; Lear makes that up. He's mad, after all.]

One of the theories is that Cordelia and the fool were actually played by the same boy actor. They never appear on stage together, and that final connection might have been metatheatrical.

[mme_n_b]

Yes, I realize Kent isn't dead - he says so :)

Why isn't Lear saying that the fool has been hanged evidence that the fool is dead? I mean - he's been following Lear, it makes sense that they would have been captured together and there's no reason not to hang him if hanging Cordelia. Assuming that "fool" is suddenly Cordelia and not Fool just seems like an unnecessary complication.

[queyntefantasye]

Again, the fool had not been on stage since act 3 by that point. We see Lear and Cordelia in captivity. There's no fool there. In fact, they explicitly talk about only the two of them being held. The fool is not there even when Cordelia takes Lear into her possession. We can obviously create a back story or place the fool on stage as a silent presence, but that's the director's choice. Early modern drama just doesn't do silent presences that last for two acts.

In the play, Lear brings out the hanged Cordelia in his arms and says: "And my poor fool is hanged. No, no, no life?" So yes, it does make sense to assume he is talking about her (after all, other people in the play are addressed or spoken of as fools). Or he is rambling. But it's definitely very clear that the fool was not one of the captives.

[mme_n_b]

Got it, thank you!

[queyntefantasye]

That's why I like talking about Lear: because there are some things in it that can be resolved only in performance...