I finished reading King Lear over the weekend. I can definitely say I enjoy reading it before seeing it acted best. Having read the first three acts before seeing the play and the final two after, I find that my play viewing experience interfered with my reading in a negative way. I was surprised by that and can only compare it to the experience of seeing the movie before reading the book it was based on.
When you get to the book, everything is colored by the movie. And so as I was reading the final two acts, I kept trying to remember how it was acted in the production, tried to read the words as if the actors were speaking them. This does not work at all. And then of course, I noticed that the production was slightly different in places than the text. Nothing big, only small changes that made the play work better on the stage. I’m sure there were probably differences between the text and the way the first three acts were produced too but I didn’t notice what they might have been while I was watching the play. Curious how text and production interact and the timing of reading affects it all so much.
That said, I very much like King Lear. I read it once before in a college class. I have underlinings and penciled notes in my creased Signet Classic paperback. I must say I found myself laughing at some of the notes. I probably wrote them during class discussion. Some of them make no sense whatsoever, though at the time they probably did. Still others are such obvious statements that I wonder why I even felt the need to write them down. It was all very amusing.
One of the big plusses of reading a play, a text that is meant to be performed, is the ability to stop, to linger, to puzzle out, turn back, reread, and simply pause to appreciate. Live performances don’t have pause or rewind buttons and you can only go barreling along in one direction. But as a reader I am in control. That control allowed me to really enjoy what is a most excellent insult made by Kent to Oswald:
A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats;
a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,
hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave;
a lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing,
superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting
slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in
way of good service, and art nothing but the composition
of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and
the son and heir of a mongrel bitch, one whom I
will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the
least syllable of thy addition.
That just flies by on stage and my only reaction was wow, what that was an insult. But in reading it I can get the full flavor which leads to a deep appreciation. I know there are books of Shakespearean insults. I hope this one is included.
And then there is the scene where Gloucester loses his eyes. Loses his eyes? As if they fall out of their own accord and roll about on the floor. No, they are gouged out and Cornwall has this glorious, gruesome line:
Out, vile jelly. Where is they luster now?
And then there are the lines that, because they are in a version of English we no longer speak, bounce off and leave no impression. But when you come upon them in reading, there is a helpful footnote to assist in puzzling it out. Like Regan late in the play telling Edmund:
I am doubtful that you have been conjunct
And bosomed with her, as far as we call hers.
I don’t even recall this line in the play. But reading it, Regan reveals she is concerned that Edmund and her sister Goneril are doing some hanky-panky but she is trying to be contemptuous and reassure herself at the same time, Edmund loves her, Regan, he and Goneril would never. Then there is the delightfully helpful footnote:
I fear that you have united with her intimately, in the fullest possible way
More than Shakespeare’s line I love this footnote! It makes me laugh every time I read it. Hey footnote writer, just come out and say it, Regan is worried Edmund and Goneril had sex! Shakespeare can be pretty raunchy so the delicacy in explaining this line is hilarious. Of course, there isn’t much in the way of ribaldry in Lear, but still.
I believe next time I pick up a Shakespeare play it will be Coriolanus, one I have neither read nor seen acted before. But before that happens I have Euripides’ Medea to look forward to.
Some of those lines from King Lear well…TAKE THE CAKE!!!!
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wompdestroyed, and those are just a small sampling!
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But don’t you think this is a perfect experience/experiment on the effects of watching and reading? I agree with you that it’s better to read the source material first so you’d have a first-hand experience with the words, forming your own images before seeing how others’ interpretations. But sometimes, a movie can spur me to read a book which otherwise I wouldn’t have any interest of reading. As for Coriolanus, definitely read it before you see the movie if the King Lear play has such a negative effect on you (albeit for myself, I admit I’ve only seen the film Coriolanus but not read the play).
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I wonder if it perhaps impossible for an actor to make Lear at all “sympathetic” (probably the wrong word but you know what I mean). Perhaps Lear actually works better on the page. Coriolanus is a character only his mother could possibly love- he has certainly been seen as a proto-fascist and Hazlitt has an extrordinarily powerful essay on the play that is hugely worth reading.
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Arti, it does make a perfect little experiment on the effects of watching and reading. I agree that sometimes seeing the movie first makes one want to read the book. I find that in those situations the visuals from the movie still dominate my reading. However, because it was the movie that made me want to read the book I find I don’t mind as much. There are even some books – movies where I am perfectly happy only seeing the movie and never reading the book. The Hunger Games movies are like that for me. Enjoy the movies but don’t feel compelled to read the books. I am hoping the National Theatre Live will broadcast Coriolanus with Tom Hiddleston. If I see that pop up on their schedule I’ll be reading the play pretty darn quick!
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Hello, very interesting post. I found Coriolanus boring to read as a teenager, totally uninteresting. Then I saw it on stage and was electrified, I heard the rhythm, the fast pace, the poetry, experienced the sheer physicality of the play and have never forgotten it’s effect on me, probably 40 years ago.
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Carol, very interesting! It sounds like you saw a fantastic performance. Doesn’t it just bring it all to life and make all the difference? I saw a production of Othello once that did the same for me 🙂
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Who played Othello? My first was Paul Robeson! What a hero.
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It was at the Globe Theatre in San Diego and so long ago I don’t remember the actor’s name. He, however, was not famous, but he was amazing. I think the man who played Iago was a well known actor but for the life of me I can’t remember who.
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I understand, it certainly happens to me. I’m in the UK so my experiences were in the West End and at Stratford.
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No one wields insults like Shakespeare! I’ve always loved Malcolm’s false comments about himself in MacBeth. The one to MacDuff where he says, “there’s no bottom none to my voluptuousness” and tells how much worse he is than MacBeth.
So much more fun to know the play before seeing it performed…and then go back to the text to examine with a new perspective.
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jenclair, oh, that’s good. You are making me want to read Macbeth. It’s been a very long time and it is so good, that Scottish play!
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Funny, when I was in college, I had a Shakespeare professor who insisted you couldn’t really appreciate a Shakespeare play unless you saw it performed, since they were written to be performed. Probably, in Shakespeare’s day, people were better listeners, since so many were unable to read, but I’ve always found that I appreciate his true genius more when I actually read the plays than when I see them performed. Ideally, yes, reading and then seeing is best. Having said all that, though, seeing Christopher Plummer in Macbeth like I did back in the ’80s? Well, no reading experience has ever come close to that!
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Emily, I half agree with your professor. I think you really do need to see the play for all the pieces to click into place, but I agree with you too that reading the plays alllows one to really appreciate his genius.
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You know like Emily, I had a professor in college who insisted that Shakespeare had to be performed to truly understand the multilayered implications of his writings. However every time I see a Shakespearean play and I have seen some which have been staged by very prestigious theater companies, I always felt like…well something was missing. I usually feel that way about films made from books as well…..only the sense of disappointment is much lower in a theater, because I guess a play has to be performed! Having said that, I think it also has to do with our reading styles and many of us while reading something usually see it enacted in our mind’s eye and any actual performance never really lives up to that original mental picture! In other news, I love Shakespearean insults…they are potent and MEAN something!! 🙂
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cirtnecce, how interesting that you tend to feel disappointed when you see a play acted. What I find odd with me and reading plays is that while when I read novels I picture the action in my mind, when I read plays I don’t do that so very much. There is so much in the text of a novel that demands you create your own personal movie in your head but I find with plays there is a lack of that sort of description. Maybe that’s why I like Shakespeare plays that tend towards the minimal in their sets because the play in my head also has a bare setting!
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Whenever possible, I like to watch the play or movie and then read whatever it’s based on. Perhaps this works because I’m so hard-headed that I’m not easily led around by other peoples’ images? Or because my father directed plays and I grew up watching a lot of them?
Once I’ve seen a production, then I like to roll around in the words for a while and imagine other ways it could be done.
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Jeanne, I’m sure you aren’t hard-headed! It’s only a different approach. I feel like I can appreciate the nuances of performance better if I know what to expect ahead of time. Perhaps you seeing all those plays your father directed gave you a training in viewing performances that allows you to enjoy them first and then wallow in the pleasures of the text.
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Love this play. Did you know that the Pullitzer Prize winner A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley is a modern retelling of King Lear? It’s a tough but rewarding read, especially if you go into it with King Lear in mind. I recommend it.
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Sarrah, yes, I’ve heard that about A Thousand Acres. It is one of those books I’ve always meant to read but haven’t gotten around to yet!
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Very interesting post. I too had to read it for class, and though I think I barely understood half of it back then, it’s remained to this day one of my favourite Shakespeare’s plays.
And re: reading it first vs. seeing it staged first, I don’t have a very strong opinion about it; for me, it all depends on the play. But in Shakespeare every single word matters, so it’s always a true delight to be able to read them, and reread them, and ponder over them at your own pace.
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marsar2, thanks! I do like to read Shakespeare plays very much. With most other plays I’ve seen I don’t especially feel like I have to read them, but Shakespeare doesn’t feel complete until I have both read and seen a performance.
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I read King Lear in high school (longer ago than I care to admit)! I much prefer to read first and then see a performance–otherwise the same thing happens to me–I have those visuals in mind and they may or may not actually work. I am reading a Noel Coward play right now in the hopes I can soon watch the film adaptation–it should be fun and I really should do it more often!
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I do a lot better with the performances than with the text, though I did once read Romeo and Juliet for kicks. I can’t recall if you are a Dodie Smith 101 Dalmations fan or not, but Coriolanus was one of the first books she was given, aged 7, and she carried it about with her all the time, hoping people would ask if she liked it because she’d prepared the response: yes, but I prefer Timon of Athens. This is what comes of growing up in a theatrical family with a lot of grown-up uncles who tease you relentlessly!
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