Ian McKellen: Understanding King Lear, the Character

clearly King there is or powerful as far as everyone he meets and the players concerned and is the reduction of that power that is part of the dilemma which sets the story in train but more than that the power is based at least in Lea's mind are on a direct relationship between him and and the numinous the gods or some eternal presence that is looking down on man many of the characters refer to the gods and I'm particularly in extremis she calls their aid so what we present first is as a priest like King and I think an audience should look out if they want to understand the LEAs progression look out for his the relationship that he has with the gods because by the end of the story I think it's pretty clear that he's lost his faith but in losing his faith he's discovered his humanity and it reminds me that progression of another play my Shakespeare that I've done an earlier play king richard ii um and and richard ii starts the beginning of his story clearly believing that he has a divine right to rule as the kings of england used to feel that but by the end as has understood that more important and that link is the links he has to his friends al are very ordinary level that we can all relate to in that sense clean richard ii isn't a tragedy i think here he discovers what life is really about now it's true that at that very point that he declares that discovery he dies but is that tragic well these labels don't mean much to their eye and it's a little bit the same we think with King beer that he goes on a torturous and terrifying emotional journey but by the end he has achieved some reconciliation to his own position in the real world and that includes love for family and respect and regard for friends and supporters and that has nothing to do as far as Lee is concerned by the end with the god something anyway literally at lea told told tells you that he's over 80 years old and feeling his age it seemed to me that was probably the reason that he decided to retire not abdicate not give away all his power but withdraw slightly from it he makes it clear that he he is not giving up the name or all the addition to a king by which I assume he meant special relationship he's got he still wants that ultimate power but he's going to hand over the day-to-day running of the the kingdom to his daughters and and the husband but as the play then proceeds he's less fitted to understanding what's going on and being able to retain his son firmness of purpose because he is old and and decrepit and um I think we can all relate to that that uh and it was a personal point for me because I just before we began rehearsing my stepmother had died aged a hundred and I'd seen her decline mentally as well as physically not emotionally her emotions were in were in fine fettle and indeed her interest in the world was was as alert as it had ever been although she developed for her curious interests as far as expressing them as consented these said she she in her late 90s was very interested in sex didn't apply to her anymore on but perhaps that was part of her interest in it of some sort of regret that it had gone and Lea to is interested in his own sexual past and it's all there in the lines so the strands that that seemed to me to run through his character and therefore the play are his the nature of his kingship and in his relationship with the gods which changes his decrepitude increasing an ability to control himself on physically and and emotionally and and this interest in sex he's got some other dirty lines and I know that's true other old people as well um there are the aspects of his kingship and his character which I am assumed um he is a man who hits people um I think he has been a bit of a bully and you see him bullying his his daughters which perhaps explains why the two older daughters have the characters they do they turn into dreadful bullies themselves like father like daughter uh he has enormous willpower and strengths and uncertainty and those characteristics are true his youngest daughter Cordelia I thought probably he'd been a warrior um the man he seems to love most in the plan is as the man who right at the beginning tells him the truth and and is thrown out of the court for his pains the Kent Kent fortunately returns into the story in disguise and is immediately liked by by Leah I think he recognizes her a man with sturdy moral military values um so I think that's the sort of King he has locked just a politician not just ruling because his father had ruled before him but there's a point to be made which is not too easy but the the play doesn't seem to be concerned with the past the story is so far is not covered by Shakespeare you just begin it now as an actor that won't do you have to you're going to believe in the car to yourself you have to imagine what we call a backstory but it isn't one the shape is really written I assumed it's not obvious in this TV version because you don't see The Closer he wears two wedding rings and I assumed he had two two wives one who gave him the two older sisters the son Kai to the perhaps was visited upon them in summer what happened to her I didn't know but maybe she died and maybe she was put to death I don't know maybe got divorced and then there was another wife perhaps the love of his life who who gave him a third child and I assume perhaps she died in childbirth so that leah has brought up Cordelia and therefore loves her most therefore once her lab back in return and it's when it doesn't seem to come to him that he gets so exercised in that first scene and maybe he's also looking into the face Ramallah Gary's beautiful face he's looking into the face of her mother who would have been about the same age when she died um I imagined that he'd been a warrior capable on the battlefield he refers to in his dying moments to his proficiency with weapons and so a military bearing seem to be appropriate there are no men bearing but really the story of Leah happens as it happens as you the audience are viewing it it's it's it's not um it's not a retrospective of a life you're flung right into the middle of it and you're told all you need to know but what you're told about is really about the present and so what happens next becomes the story Robin what happened before you

Channel: StagingShakespeare

Views: 187,702

Keywords: Ian McKellen (Activist), King Lear (Book), king, acting, character, lear, shakespeare, trevor nunn, nunn, RSC, Royal Shakespeare Company (Organization), teach, teaching, how to teach

Id: ahFtoCq6CHw

Length: 10min 50sec (650 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 17 2014