Alvin Epstein on King Lear
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Alvin Epstein as Lear [Actors' Shakespeare Project]
For Thanksgiving night, no ordinary family drama. The center of this one is not just a father of three daughters, he’s a king. His friend is the father of sons, in and out of wedlock. Their story could be taken as a caution against getting those kids and their parents together too caringly, and certainly against dividing up the goods too casually. The play is Shakespeare’s tragedy of King Lear. Nothing in the language of suffering and madness — not Don Quixote, not the Book of Job—goes beyond King Lear, says the Shakespeare celebrant Harold Bloom, though Bloom also argues that the sustained pitch of pain and poetry make Lear unperformable on stage. Unless, once in a blue moon, the alchemy of acting can present an old king who in the worst of his rages, at the depths of his nihilism, remains—as Bloom puts it—“lovable, loving and greatly loved.??? The actor Alvin Epstein talks about the lore, the legacy, the language of his Lear.
Alvin Epstein
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Fifty-year veteran of the stage
King Lear in the Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s recent staging of Lear
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November 23rd, 2005 at 4:34 pm
Former Amherst College President Tom Gerety’s speach about King Lear opened for the the sadness and the pathos of shakespeare’s play. Yes,Lear is loveable but he is betrayed by family and friends and he betrays his true love his daughter. As a family implodes a kingdom crumbles.
Forty years ago I saw Paul Scofield’s masterful Lear.
Can we be God’s spies agents in Bush’s Kingdom today. Is laughter possible after Katrina and Iraq?
November 24th, 2005 at 3:30 am
I hope you can find context for Kurosawa’s version of King Lear, “Ran.” Aside from the stunning visuals one expects from Kurosawa, I came away with a palpable sense of the universality of Shakespeare’s main themes. The themes are the same as the ones that August Wilson said drive all of his work; love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty.
November 26th, 2005 at 9:44 am
I saw this performance and loved it. Will there be an MP3 link to the show so that I can hear the interview?
November 30th, 2005 at 11:55 am
Thanks for a wonderful interview. It reminded me of a great performance of King Lear which I saw more than 50 years ago in Bristol, UK. Eric Porter played King Lear and I think he was with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I was at high school in nearby Bath. We were studying for important national exams but our English teacher took time out for us to read thru King Lear (not on our syllabus) so we’d be prepared for this performance at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre. Even at the age of 17 I was deeply moved as the play seemed to express the pathos of being human with such compassion and humour. I still have the theater program after umpteen moves, emigration to the USA etc. as it is a very precious memory.
December 4th, 2005 at 12:04 pm
For me, the “love� interaction in Act 1, between Lear and his daughters may be the most power thing Shakespeare has written. I feel that with this exchange, Shakespeare’s message went beyond the main themes of the play and spoke to the limits of both our greatest playwright and of the written word. When Cordelia says “nothing� in response to her fathers query, and then says “I cannot heave my heart into my mouth,� is not Shakespeare telling us something profound about himself, about writing, and about love? That not even he, Shakespeare, the master of words, can ultimately convey true love- with words! For me this revelation came while reading the preceding passages where Goneril and Regan profess their love. Their pronouncements of love for their father are some of the most beautiful in our written language, “a love that makes breath poor, and speech unable. Beyond all manner of ‘so much’ I love you.� Shakespeare writes the most beautiful words he can think to convey pure love, and he writes them for a character who is disingenuous, who will ultimately betray; amazing! Moreover, Shakespeare foreshadows Cordelia’s response, with Goneril’s statement that true love makes “speech unable.� As great as Shakespeare was, he still had humility.