Having used the works of Shakespeare throughout
my teaching career, especially in psychology courses (I have taught all major
subject area courses at the K-12 level, in addition to East Asian history
courses at the university level) my particular inspiration for compressing these
works into versions for 30-minute performances came first in the course of the
2012-2013 academic year.
During the academic year of note, I had
three extraordinary female students who made perfect daughters Cordelia,
Goneril, and Regan of King Lear (as enacted by me) in the June 2013 New Salem
Educational Initiative Banquet. From
that time on, my students and I went forth confidently, ever reflecting upon
our joy in performing these great works.
The hip-hop generation loves words; Shakespeare is the best wordsmith in history,
and the Bard’s themes are replete with resonances to the tenor of life at the
urban core. My students love performing
these great plays, diving enthusiastically in their roles and then traveling
with me to the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, Minnesota each
summer
Shakespeare is a vital component of my
total commitment to be the adult that my students need in their lives, one who
imparts to them their inheritance as human beings, giving them an education of
excellence and preparing them according to the three great purposes of
education: cultural enrichment, civic preparation,
professional satisfaction.
King
Lear vies with Hamlet for
designation by literary critics as the greatest of Shakespeare’s tragedies (the
Bard wrote tragedies, comedies, and histories, 36 plays in all, in addition to
his sonnets and epic poems). The aging
monarch is retiring, making a fateful decision to cede all of his land to his
three daughters and their husbands. At the
very beginning of the action, King Lear makes two rash responses, a wrenching overreaction
to a perceived slight from his beloved youngest daughter Cordelia; and snap reply to his trusted adviser Kent,
who had attempted to intervene to prevent the decision regarding Cordelia. The action of the play shows Lear in
startlingly rapid decline in mental and physical health as the consequences of
his actions unfold in a brutal dialectic of betrayal, further rash responses,
and circumstances that occur with punishing logical force.
Consider now this compressed version, which
captures the core story, themes, and characters of one of the greatest tragic
plays in the English language.
Shakespeare’s King Lear
All original lines by William
Shakespeare
Compressed for Performance at
Spring 2013 New Salem Educational Initiative Banquet
Gary Marvin Davison, Ph. D.
Director, New Salem Educational Initiative
King Lear:
Give me the map there. Know that we have divided
in three our kingdom: and ‘tis our fast intent
to shake all cares and business from our
age:
Conferring them on younger strengths, while
we
Unburthen’d crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,
And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
we have this hour a constant will to
publish
our daughters’ several dowers, that future
strife
may be prevented now. The princes, France
and Burgundy,
great rivals in our younger daughter’s
love,
long in the court have made their amorous sojourn,
and must be answer’d.
Tell me, my daughters,
which of you shall say doth love us most?
That we in our largest bounty may extend
where nature doth with merit challenge.
Goneril, our eldest-born, speak first.
Goneril:
Sir, I love you more than words can wield
the matter;
Dearer than eyesight, and liberty;
beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;
no less than life, with grace, health,
beauty, honour;
as much as child e’er loved, or father
found;
a love that makes breath poor, and speech unable:
beyond all manner of so much I love you.
Cordelia:
[Aside]
What shall Cordelia do?
Love,and be silent.
King Lear:
Of these bounds, even from this line to
this,
with plenteous rivers and wide-skirted
meads,
we make thee lady; to thine and Albany’s issue,
be this perpetual. What says our second daughter,
our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak.
Regan:
Sir, I am made
of that self-same metal that my sister is,
and prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love;
only she comes too short: that I profess
myself an enemy to other joys,
which the most precious square of sense
possesses;
and find I am alone felicitate in your
highness’ love.
Cordelia:
[Aside]
Then poor Cordelia!
And yet not so: since, I am sure,
my love’s
more richer than my tongue.
King Lear:
To thee and thine hereditary ever
remain this ample third of our fair
kingdom;
no less in space, validity, and pleasure,
than that conferr’d on Goneril. Now, our joy,
although the last, not least;
to whose young love
the vines of France and milk of Burgundy
strive to be interess’d; what can you say to draw
a third more opulent than your sisters?
Cordelia:
Nothing.
Lear:
Nothing!
Cordelia:
Nothing.
Lear:
Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.
Cordelia:
Unhappy though I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; nor more nor less.
King Lear:
How, how, Cordelia!
Mend your speech a little
lest it may mar your fortunes.
Cordelia:
Good my lord,
you have begot me, bred me, loved me:
I return those duties back as are right
fit,
obey you, love you, and most honour you.
why have my sisters husbands, if they say
they love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
that lord whose hand must take my plight
shall carry half my love with him,
half my care and duty:
Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters,
to love my father all.
King Lear:
But goes thy heart with this?
Cordelia.
Ay, my good lord.
King Lear:
So young, and so untender?
Cordelia:
So young, my lord, and true.
King Lear:
Let it be so; thy truth, then be thy dower,
for by the sacred radiance of the sun,
the mysteries of Hecate, and the night;
by all the operation of the orbs
from whom we do exist, and cease to be;
here I disclaim all my paternal care,
propinquity and property of blood,
and as a stranger to my heart and me
hold thee, from this, for ever.
The barbarous Scythian,
or he that makes his generation messes
to gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
be as well neighbor’d, pitied, and
relieved,
as thou my sometime daughter.
The
Prince of Burgundy, appearing fearful at King Lear’s harsh words, makes
a
hasty exit. But the Prince of France
moves protectively toward Cordelia.
Kent:
Good, my liege,---
King Lear:
Peace, Kent!
Kent:
Check this hideous rashness. Reverse thy doom.
Thy youngest daughter does not love thee
least.
King Lear:
Kent, on my life no more.
Kent:
My life I never held nor fear to lose it,
Thy safety being my motive.
King Lear:
Out of my sight.
Kent:
Fare thee well, king; sith thou thus wilt appear,
freedom lives hence, and banishment is
here.
[To Cordelia] The gods to their dear shelter
Take thee, maid, that hast most rightly
said!
[To Regan and Goneril]
And your large speeches may your deeds
approve,
that good effects may spring from words of
love.
The
Prince of France and Cordelia exit together, arm in arm. Goneril and
Regan
look at each other with expressions that reveal a sense of both victory and
guilt. All players exit, including
Goneril (with Albany) and Regan (with Cornwall), with the latter couples
departing in opposite directions.
……………………………………………………………………………..
Goneril:
Did my father strike my gentleman for
chiding of his fool?
Audience:
Yes, madam.
Fool:
I will hold my tongue; so your face bids me, though you say nothing.
Mum, mum.
Goneril:
Not only, sir, your all-licensed fool,
but other of your insolent retinue
do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth
in rank and not-to-be-endured riots.
Here do you keep a hundred knights and
squires:
Be then desired a little to disquantity
your train.
King Lear:
Darkness and devils!
I’ll not trouble thee:
Yet I have left a daughter.
Regan:
Good sir, no more; these are unsightly tricks:
Return you to my sister.
King Lear:
Never, Regan;
She hath abated me of half my train.
Who put my man in the stocks?
Fool:
That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack when it begins to rain,
and leave thee in the storm.
But I will tarry; the fool will stay,
and let the wise man fly;
the knave turns fool that runs away,
the fool no knave, perdy.
Kent:
Where learned you this, fool?
Fool:
Not in the stocks, fool.
Goneril:
Hear me, my lord:
What need you five and twenty, ten, or
five,
to follow in a house where twice so many
may command you?
Regan:
What need one?
King Lear:
You unnatural hags,
I will do such things, yet I know not,
but they shall be the terrors of the earth.
You think I’ll weep, but this heart
shall break into a thousand flaws,
or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!
...............................................................................................................................
Albany
and Goneril stand facing each other.
Albany:
Most monstrous!
Goneril,
ashamed, makes a quick exit from the
stage.
After
a few moments, Gentleman enters holding a knife and wearing a look of
fear
on his face.
Gentleman:
Help, help, O help! “Tis hot, it smokes;
it came even from the heart of--- O, she’s dead!
Albany:
Who dead?
Speak, man.
Gentleman:
Your lady, sir, your lady [Goneril stabbed
herself]; and her sister [Regan]
by her is poisoned; she hath confessed it.
Albany:
This judgement of the heavens, that makes
us tremble,
touches us not with pity.
Exit
Gentleman.
The
fool steps forward to inform the audience that King Lear, with two daughters
now dead, now returns after discovering
that Cordelia has been hung in a prison after orders given by a conspirator
with sisters Goneril and Regan.
King Lear:
Howl, howl, howl, howl! Oh you men of
stones:
he’s gone forever!
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips.
Look there, look there!
No breath at all? [Dies]
Kent:
Break, heart; I prithee, break!
The wonder is, he hath endured so long.
Albany:
The weight of this sad time we must obey;
speak what we feel, not what we say.
The oldest hast borne the most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
All
of those still living line up with backs to the audience. After a pause, all of those dead rise and
join them. Then all of those lined up
turn to face the audience, join hands, and give
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