Missy - King Lear ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

I think I’m glad we did Lear so early. There are a few plays that hurt my feelings enough that I don’t watch them, and this is one. 

King Lear is a morality play done by a nihilist. No one (Edgar notwithstanding) is lovable. Cordelia is right and Kent is loyal but the ugly humanity and worser natures on display in this story make it hard to swallow. 

That being said: this is the best Lear I’ve ever seen and I’m giving it 5 stars. 

I’m more than mildly surprised by that score but as a production it’s just about perfect. 

The casting, settings, sound design and cinematography are outstanding. 

Every delivery is believable, comprehensible, and sincere.

I was talking to my daughter about why I don’t like watching Lear and found myself describing him as both a diva and a little bitch. She remarked that I’d just sworn more than she had ever heard at one time. That is not quite, but nearly, true.

The truth is of course that the bleakness and cruelty in Lear makes me uncomfortable and I prefer to be comfortable in my leisure time.

The Hopkins decision, or possibly director Richard Eyre’s decision, to put Lear measurably into dementia or with one foot solidly in the land of senility, makes me much more comfortable.

All the other King Lear’s (plays and stories) told during Shakespeare’s  time have happy endings. I certainly sympathize with the impulse. Lear’s last line about looking at Cordelia’s lips, as if she might still be breathing, allows for that hard to smother hope. It’s not a happy play though, and it’s easier to imagine that he is still out of his mind than that she somehow survived her own assassination. 

Special shout out here to Edmund (John MacMillan) for making a potentially cartoon villain completely buyable. I love how much is shortcutted here by portraying the bastard son as nonwhite. The culturally saturated offhand dismissal of a bastard son in Shakespeares time and the casual racism of our own having a powerful overlap.

He is pissed off and vengeful for a lifetime of abuse and disregard as his subtext works exactly. 

Plus I’m not familiar with Macmillan’s work but anyone who can hold their own with Hopkins and Thompson in the room is top notch. That dude has chops!

I’m going to try to watch some of his stuff.

I am also going to watch RAN (the Kurosawa Lear adaptation) and maybe do a supplemental blog post here.

King Lear - 5 stars for production and decision making

Mom score - 0 for no moms at all