#did i see a production of king lear and cry? of course i did

[aimfor-theheart]

☕️ + king lear (since you latched onto cordelia)

omg THANK YOU FOR ASKINGGGG! i hope you’re doing well and having a good day 💞💞

what’s funny is i hated king lear at first. detested it. i said gET THIS OLD COOT OFF STAGE!! DRAG HIM OFF W A CANE!! WHERE ARE MY TOMATOES!!!

but the more i read, the more i warmed to it. i have a strange attachment to it. i think i just want to play cordelia at some point in my life—and when i’m old, i want to play lear and be the old coot myself.

i think we could probably talk plenty about it’s themes: justice, authority, nihilism, forgiveness, betrayal, etc. beyond that, we could of course talk about the very sexist nature of the play. but at the time, when i read it, all i saw was a story about a sick family member and a daughter who remained so loyal it cost her life. and i just resonated with her. and i got woefully attached to her monologue in the beginning of the play that begins with:

“Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave

My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty

According to my bond; no more nor less.”

which just kills me, because this whole monologue is her attempting to tell her father how unjust he is being, asking them to love him above everything. asking them to put him before everyone and anything. that you shouldn’t love someone like that, family or not. and i think the use of “heave” and “heart” strike a particular cord for me too.

and sometimes i have to remind myself that with family members. i love them according to my bond, no more nor less. i love them a great great deal and there is a lot i would do for them, but there is a line. and cordelia, noose and all, tend to remind me of that.

[harry-leroy]

Hotspur, Falstaff, and Hal :)

Hello! First - I am so sorry that this took 5 million years to answer. Wonderful question - problem was, I needed to watch a few more productions of the Henriad in order to answer it to the best of my ability. I appreciate your patience as this took wayyyy too long for me to get around to. But we’re here, we did it, and we’re ready to answer. I want to answer all of these as best as I can, so thank you for allowing me to do that! Anyway, on to some love for the Henriad! 

For Hotspur, the winner is… 

Trevor White! (RSC, 2014) 

Okay, so Trevor White actually might have replaced Joe Armstrong as my favorite Hotspur. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore Joe Armstrong, but Trevor White absolutely killed it in this role. Before watching this performance, I always thought Hotspur was cool, but I was never really actively rooting for him across the play - I’ve always been more partial to Hal (damn it Hal, always gotta be so heckin charming). However, with Trevor White’s performance, I was totally enraptured. I got excited when I saw him walk on stage, and I got a little wistful when he left, and man was I cheering for him. I totally felt like I got a deeper sense of who Hotspur really is by watching White perform it, which was so incredibly invaluable, and not to mention, very, very helpful. It makes me really want to go back and read the Henriad all over again. (Which I probably will do, to be honest). I’m curious as to how Michelle Terry will fare this summer as Hotspur because the pictures look glorious. 

For Falstaff, the winner is… 

Roger Allam! (Shakespeare’s Globe, 2010) 

Here’s the thing that made this difficult: I have yet to see a Falstaff that I do not like. Call him a loveable character, or maybe I’ve just seen some really good productions, but everyone I’ve seen was wonderful. I loved Simon Russell Beale’s performance in The Hollow Crown - that was the first performance of the Henriad I have seen and you never forget your firsts. I adored Christopher Benjamin in The Merry Wives of Windsor (not to mention that entire cast was so sharp and so in tune with one another - it made that whole production very enjoyable). Even Antony Sher, who I am not the biggest fan of (maybe because I watched his Lear, I’m not sure), played a hilariously entertaining Falstaff. The other thing, besides just being an amazing character, that makes a Falstaff successful is his chemistry with Hal. These two actors have to be so in tune with one another, and gosh, they’ve all been incredible thus far. Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale, Alex Hassell and Antony Sher, and of course, Jamie Parker and Roger Allam: they’ve all got a wonderful stage chemistry with one another, and it makes watching this play so, so enjoyable. I just absolutely adore Allam’s comedic timing - it’s a nice change from watching him as Fred Thursday on Endeavour (which don’t get me wrong, I love it, but it’s a quite-serious detective show about murder, so not much room for laughs). He’s got a wonderful knack for being able to play father figures: Thursday and Morse (Shaun Evans), Prospero and Miranda (Jessie Buckley) /Ferdinand (Joshua James) /Ariel (Colin Morgan), and Falstaff and Hal. This comedic timing comes back in The Tempest, where I think Allam killed it as Prospero. I can’t wait until he does a whole production as Lear (might be a few years). I know there are clips out there, but I’m pretty sure those are just scenes. 

And finally, for my darling Hal, the winner is… 

Alex Hassell! (RSC, 2014) 

God, every time I return to the Henriad, I am reminded just how much I absolutely adore Hal. I adore him. He’s such an amazing character and I will fight to say that he’s the best English king there ever was. No doubt about it. While I don’t think anything can top Jamie Parker’s Hal (which was extraordinary) - at least for me, anyway, Hassell’s performance was a joy to watch. I’m pretty Globe biased (guilty as charged), but this 2014 RSC performance was amazing - totally blew me away. Hassell had charm, and wit, and honesty, and there was such a beautiful genuineness to his performance. And of course, paralleled with Trevor White, these two were like dynamite on that stage, especially during their fight scenes. (And they bowed together?! like… I was crying at the end of that because that’s all that needed to happen). 

Anyway, I’m going to go cry about the Henriad some more while I read it again.