Discussing ageing in King Lear with Sir Ian McKellen

literature down the ages has explored all aspects of human life Shakespeare famously wrote about the seven ages of man and in this final week we're looking at the final ages of human life looking at questions of Aging and in particular of the mind becoming frail in times of age dementia Alzheimer's conditions that affect so many people now and as with so many people living longer it's a huge problem for society and we want to explore whether people living with loved ones suffering from dementia might be helped in some ways by seeing how a great writer like Shakespeare deals with the painful aspect of old age and there's no one better to talk to about this than Sir Ian McKellen Sir Ian McKellen one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of modern times it's played all the major parts and a few years ago he embarked on the role of King Lear in many ways perhaps the most demanding of all Shakespeare's tragic parts I remember speaking to another actor Oliver Ford Davis also very good Lear and he said the problem with King Lear is that by the time you're old enough to play it you're too old to play it it's a huge endurance test and yet you have to have a kind of inwardness with the experience of old age Ian thanks so much for talking to us today about King Lear it was quite a quite a struggle to get inside that role wasn't it I'll give you a little a little secret I saw your Lear in preview even before the press Knight and then I saw it again near the end of the run many many months later and I don't think I've ever seen a performance that has changed and grown so much and becomes so much more profound and complete than I did there it's really that I don't if you've you felt that you'll settle yourself well as performances go by and I suppose I did about a hundred and fifty tear of their ovary in a variety of different theaters across the world actually you can't really judge day by day how things are changing but of course it is it is the great joy of theater that that you're not stuck you can advance in the film a decision has been made by the editor and the director and that is the performance but eventually we did film the king there actually and and what you get in that is there is the experience of years working on it so I'm not surprised that you were more taken with the later than the earlier version good right from what you were saying but Oliver for Davis I I think the first thing that struck me about Lear was his strength his physical strength in Shakespeare's day a man of over eighty would be an unusual person so he is still alive but right at the top of the play although we know very little about him about his past life or in even what sort of king he has been he hasn't come to a decision that he's going to stop being king he's going to keep the name and all the additions to a king is that the fresh but he's going to hand over the power to his sons-in-law and then the story starts so he has he has at a point I think where he's aware that his his strength is going even though in the first scene he seems to offer to to hit one of his oldest and most loyal allies Kent and later definitely does hit Oswald and in the story surviving everything that he's all the indignities is put through been thrown out by two daughters who seem to want to kill him destroy he still survives and I I think it's rather that willpower that he's got against increasing frailness that is the mark of his madness matters of word that rings through the players in it and I think perhaps has a different sort of emphasis depending on where it's actually used but I don't look only as madness as being a frailty rather it's a sign of his strengths it's almost it's it's a way of sort of fighting back and yes and I don't therefore connected with what I know of dementia which he's pretty well almost always in control or trying to be in control and and and if he if he if he's lost in a world of his own making it when he meets up with Gloucester another disadvantaged old man and I think the stage direction whether it's Shakespeare's or not the air enters mad we may not quite be able to totally get into that well but he's in a world of his own making and therefore I never really think he's a victim of some mental disability but he does have I mean Shakespeare I'm sure the great observer would have observed the behavior of old men and old women and there are there instance moments where his memory is going I'm always particularly struck by that moment when he's he's angry and he's raging about what is he going to do about his evil daughter I will do such things what they are I know not but they shall be the terrors of the earth he can't actually remember what he's going to do or imagine what or imagine it all goes wrong right at the upset when this man who seems to have been totally in control of the nation the court his family that decides to change all that and and retire as opposed would be good with not abdicate retire let the work be done by others perhaps he's looking forward simply to retirement as many of people do Oh at last I can do what I want to do run low be relieved of all responsibilities always bolstered by his connection with the gods and he it's probably a theocracy he's been rubbing and that's why in our production we began with a with a silent show of everybody in the plane kneeling to him and almost worshiping the power that he got he gives away that power nobody really comments on it on that what they're concerned about is that he rejects his loving daughter Cordelia who's who's dead perhaps with a family tray of obstinacy that she's learned from her father to speak the truth and stands up to him that is what appalls everybody his reaction to that his throwing her out then then discarding Kent his ally almost immediately that's what everybody thinks to be extraordinary although his daughter's left alone the elder daughters Goneril and Regan say but he's always been a bit like ya have ever but slenderly known himself so is it a sort of continuation of a form of behavior that's been always his characteristic that comes with old age I sense that they perhaps don't know their father very well and my would their he they've been very much his subjects it seems they've been very much brought up to obey orders and do what he wants and and if he's an all-powerful King that's the situation but all his all the journey that he goes on towards the self awareness towards I think I felt strongly a rejection of the gods who turned out to be absolutely no use in the dilemma which he finds himself this all becomes comes from his decision to stop being the sort of King he has been and I think we can all relate to that that if you stop doing the job which has been all absorbing what you're going to do and if you've been all-powerful if you've been a God on earth and suddenly just a man you're suddenly just a father you're suddenly got time to play that's not the life he's used to isn't it so it's a it's a self-imposed change which he's not absolutely not prepared for but it's a change that releases in all the other characters sometimes a madness of their own surely it's not mad to blind somebody isn't it and particularly on a stage in front of us a lot of strangers I mean it's the worst thing you could almost do almost worse than actually killing them and and so everybody's released Cordelia becomes herself and becomes estranged from her father Kent the same Lear's dilemma even seems to get inside someone who's making a parallel journey towards self-awareness the young man Edgar who takes off all his clothes and says I'm going to start afresh by being somebody else by pretending to be mad I feel that couldn't really have happened unless the whole nation hadn't been put into turmoil by the Kings wrong decision stupid decision for each decision mad decision to think that you can give away everything and yet retain it and so it begins with not a mental disability but a bad decision but it's interesting yeah you're saying it's a play about retirement and yeah I guess the problem is that as you say for him he he's not prepared himself for it and he no longer is he able just to give commands and do what he wants and for his for his children of course they then have the problem he says right I'm gonna come and live in your home um oh by the way I'll bury one hundred hundred nights with me and that's that sort of sense that retirement is one of the most difficult moments in the life not only of an individual but also in the life of a family yeah and in that sense one one does have a degree of sympathy for Goneril and Regan although they do terrible things it's not easy to have a difficult old man coming living living in your house and there's been nothing we can detect to prepare them for this situation he's not been a good father and to that extent if he's going to hand everything over to his sons-in-law and their and and his daughters that their wives um this should have been some preparation for it but it's all it's all as he seems to have behaved all his life willful what I say is right and and don't contradict it because I had the gods on my side that's an unfair advantage isn't it I think one of the other key aspects of his aging is his how quick he is to be angry but he has a quick temper and I sense that a lot of what his anger is about is the sort of frustration that as you get older even day to day tasks become more difficult when you know when he's he's trying to do what buttons and put on boots and so on and it was that something you sort of played with when you were you refer to one of his last lines and do this button what other player I could could have sort of sudden everything out with that I I can't breathe they could this button played perhaps in a certain bit smaller than live always imagined that Elizabethan play houses a theater where everybody aloneness could have seen that button which becomes fully at that moment the most important thing in his life a button that's our human experience isn't it the stumble on the stairs which ends up with a broken leg and a long term in hospital and permanent disability perhaps just that small everyday thing but one of the problems of planking there and and and other Shakespearean leading roles is that the backstory the history is not revealed to the audience he's eight years old he's got a daughter Cordelia his youngest who must be one early twenties she's getting married for the Elizabethans that would be rather late wouldn't it she might even be younger than that so he became a father when he was in his early sixties was Cordelia the daughter of the same mother as Goneril and Regan I thought not hmm I thought perhaps he'd had two wives and that's why I wore two wedding rings I did notice but me it would explain the difference in temperament between the accordion has our sisters and would explain perhaps why she was absolutely his favorite because at the point of it she knows at the outset of the play she would look rather like perhaps her mother had looked when Leah fell in love with her perhaps he fell in love with her but we don't know and suddenly it's all happening and it happens with an enormous speed there the decline they the release of all the violence in other characters as well as in Kingdom and I suppose sex was theft playing with what his kingship and burned what responsibility does a leader have and so on but but he retains his physical strength yes he may find it difficult at times to put it on his boobs and of course does he all his life somebody else has put his boots on for him you know he's not normally a man but when the last things he does it appears there are alternatives but the traditional way of playing it is that the old man of over 18 having been through all the physical degradation of being out of doors for the first time in his life cold and miserable and um house actually carried the corpse of his daughter that's a remarkable physical feat so he you do feel all the time right to the very Anton that that that he's his he's bull like he's some potentially aggressive and I think they what appealed to me most about playing the part and perhaps as germane to what you're questioning is that he discovers his weaknesses and then sort of embraces them and recognizes that love is more important than power he becomes gentle yes the fun for me my absolute favorite scene in the play is when when he awakens after that that's sleep and he there I don't like using the word madness but he there's other worldliness isn't that he he almost thinks am I still dreaming have I died and gone to heaven are you an angel I am bound on wheel of farm I don't ears to scold like now that doesn't seem to me to be Adam that seems to be him trying to understand his physical and his mental and his emotional state and what it is to be a father and indeed what it is to be a human being but there isn't there is still an element of that memory loss that is that is very characteristic footage do you remember he says I don't remember where I was last night and that sort of sense you can remember things from long ago but you can't remember last night but that's just the stage is good going through and we've all been you don't have to be very very old to have that experience but have I come into this room to do that sort of over that may be a sign of things to come but as we're all familiar with that it's that as he goes along as an observer you might say this man is so in temperate so foolish it's so willful that might be can only put a label on it and he's mad and although leav says I don't want to be mad don't let me be mad I think I'm mad I actually what he's trying to do is define himself on the stage he's at so for him it isn't to madness others might think it's so peculiar but we have to put a label on it but for him it's a learning process that he's going through and therefore I don't really relate it to my notions of what dementia is where you're you're losing it you're losing it you're losing it the whole time I I feel on the country there is gaining it gaining it gaining it but he does behave in some some quite peculiar ways I mean it's a it's a little strange for an old man a former King used to being robed to start taking his clothes off in a storm in the middle of the night obviously he's doing it because Edgar poor Tom has done it but what when what did you when you were playing that that segment of it I mean famously you did take all your clothes off tonight right - well I I wanted to do that because done that at the bean and I think their stories are related that they're both trying to get back to themselves as poor they kid what's the phrase one poor naked wretches and unaccommodating man who uses that phrase yes Wow in terms of the plan the stage it's only about an hour and a half from having been ruling the world to seeing himself and others as being bare forked animals well what a revelation that was for him and for us if that's madness it's a madness for which we should be grateful and well I mean I could just can't get over with that scene we know this play was performed in front of King James the day after Christmas days 1606 in the palace at Whitehall for a king to be sitting the prime seat in the center of the auditorium watching a king do that I mean it's astonishing how Shakespeare got away with it I just don't know I suppose but I gave his bat relate it to anybody else but III know from talking to friends and strangers who have seen me play King Lear that they often related it to their own experience with with ageing towns and my own stepmother boat was stumbling towards a hundred years old well I was doing King Lear old age being tired wanting a little peace I think that's how earlier starts out he just wants to let it all go and have a bit of fun or just sleep or something he's exhausted and and by this foolishness not not just of getting rid of his youngest daughter but giving too much part of their to the other two daughters he then has to cope with all those reactions so when he's in the storm and he takes off his clothes and wants to be part of the elements that wouldn't have happened if the daughters haven't turned him out of doors and for the first time he was having to cope against the rain and the storm and the cold and it would be an intolerable play to watch if Shakespeare hadn't given near his carers those who loved him why did they love him there must be something about this man that is admirable and oh it at his worst moments of distress and discomfort discombobulation is that her work at his side is a fool who serves him and loves him wants to help Kent in disguise always there with him and eventually his youngest daughter with all her love so you think it's there's a sense of it is going to be all right if he were just on his own I don't think we could watch it and there's also old people need us need with their family I'll need love and they also they also need the kindness of strangers don't they the one of the wonderful things about the play is this parallel plot where you have Gloucester also an old man an old man who is rendered blind on stage and the extraordinary thing with him is the way that he is helped by a servant and then by poor Tom in disguise but just an old man and an old man that doesn't have a name that's just just that sense that at the moment when he's being treated in the most appalling way you know the servant of the Duke of Cornwall stands up and fights for Gloucester and then other servants apply blacks and whites of eggs to his to his wounded eyes and and the peep the people who are kind are not always the ones in fact often they're the ones who don't have power and wealth and Status themselves and I I think it's a mistake therefore to think the King there isn't entirely pessimistic and on the contrary every little sign of love and affection and simple humanity shines even brighter because of its context and at the end the last line spoken by Edgar or Alban they're depending on which text you follow weed that a young shall never live so see so much nor live so long I think it is the summary really of perhaps what Shakespeare wants us to take away from the play is that we must learn by the misfortunes of our elders and what they've been through and take it into our own lives so the here at the end is is is Edgar who likely s thrown out by his family discarded unloved goes on the journey of self-awareness but much of it to do is wanting to help other people and not being totally self-regarding which is partly as biggest sin and so even at the end of all this horror it's going to be alright perhaps for the people who are left one of the other heroes at the end is Kento he can't you know his heart begins to break when he's really not when he and Lear are reunited when he's out of disguise and then I always love that bit where Albany has this rather daft idea that they should divide up the kingdom again and maybe you know Kent and Edgar should take it in turns to think hey Albany hang on dividing the kingdom that wasn't good idea at the beginning of the play I don't think it's a good idea at the end and remember Kent just says no I don't think that's a good idea he says I have a journey sir soon to go my master calls me I must not say no and you since he knows his heart perhaps he's already had a heart attack II it's almost as if he knows he's gonna have another heart attack he's just gracefully going to to withdraw into death to make sure that Edgar I'm convinced it should be Edgar who takes over at the end know what an amazing man Kent is when his master dies his life seems to be over as well but in the end it's the survivors who would draw our attention isn't particularly Edgar but I agree with you the apt you know people often say Shakespeare's bleakest tragedy but actually there's so much love at the end I always think of that line of Philip Larkins what will survive of us is love yes this play lesson from it well the thing about one of the things about dementia snit and an old person who seems to be utterly changed perhaps physically as well as mentally is the effect they have on people who with them and they're my experiencing and those are friends looking after someone who is incapable who in the past has been the provider it's very very very distressing but and then you say well that's life and you don't when the old person dies feel oh I too must now die no you must go on mmm-hmm it's not your turn yet so very few men Oh Shakespeare I think that's a very very good point to end on that it's a play about dealing with old age the effect on families and a community of these changes that come with retirement and then failing physical health mental health and so on and and I would put into play as an atheist to the notion that seems to me strongly in the play that in the end you can't depend on the gods because they're utterly unreliable yeah it's old Albany again he keeps invoking the gods and something else goes wrong that's right I just I can't remember whether there's a line that there says but I certainly felt it when I was playing is by the end leah has no faith in the gods whatsoever and doesn't refer to them and which is a huge change for him because clearly the beginning he invokes the guards immediately that and anyone tries to cross him and that goes so it's it's we are powerful animals and we have to get on with it and we have to do it ourselves as best we can

Channel: University of Warwick

Views: 27,667

Rating: 4.8730159 out of 5

Keywords: Mental Health, MOOC, Free Online Course, Warwick, University of Warwick, Literature, Literature and Mental Health, Reading for Wellbeing, Depression, Bipolar, Stress, Stress Management, Bereavement, Heartbreak, Heartache, Dementia, Ageing and Dementia, Trauma, PTSD, Sir Ian McKellen, Stephen Fry, Lord Melvyn Bragg, Mark Haddon, Rachel Kelly, Professor Jonathan Bate, Dr Paula Bryne

Id: NZfUMPs-s2Y

Length: 30min 6sec (1806 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 15 2016