Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Kathryn Hunter played King Lear twice. Greg Hicks took him on for the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford. Brian Cox was so consumed he spent a year writing a diary about the ordeal. And Simon Russell Beale played him at the National Theatre in London, where all four actors gathered backstage to talk to the FT about what it is like to play the best part in Shakespeare.Cordelia: So the point of this all is to have people who have actually played King Lear talk about what it\u2019s like to play King Lear. There\u2019s one big question I want to ask you all first\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Simon: The trouble is that it will just be actors telling stories. Cordelia: But that\u2019s exactly what we want. So, everyone goes on all the time about Hamlet, how wonderful Hamlet is, how Hamlet is the part. But there is something about Lear that audiences respond to in a very specific way. It\u2019s compelling and it\u2019s upsetting. He\u2019s this cruel tyrant, but still they love him. What is it about this guy that holds us so? Simon: I used to play a game with [the actor] Norman Rodway about our top five and our bottom five Shakespeare plays. The bottom five were always the same. The top five used to change, but Lear was always up there. I mean, I\u00a0think it\u2019s the greatest play he wrote. Why? My big thing about Lear is that it fails to be redemptive. It promises redemption and doesn\u2019t give it. It\u2019s like the bleakest vision of our life on Earth. I\u00a0can witter on a bit but\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Brian: Witter away. Simon: There are two different endings for Lear. The Quarto version has him saying, \u201cHeart I prithee break\u201d, which, in fact, is a line that eventually ends up with Kent. But in the later Folio version, we have the famous, \u201clook there, look there\u201d, and it\u2019s magnificent. I was always taught that \u201clook there, look there\u201d is a sort of moment of \u201cis Cordelia breathing?\u201d Her mouth is open. That seems to be what he means. [But] I went on stage that night and thought, can I just switch this round a bit? Instead of it being, \u201clook, she\u2019s breathing\u201d, it became \u201cLook!\u201d to the people around him. \u201cLook at that.\u201d That is what life is. Life is kneeling there with the corpse of my daughter in front of me. There\u2019s been no chance of forgiveness and of redemption. It raises the question of whether redemption is possible.Cordelia: When you\u2019re a working actor, do you see Lear coming at you, looming over the horizon? Or does it spring upon you? Kathryn: I was 14.Brian: 14?!Kathryn: O-level. That\u2019s when my relationship [with the play] began. It was something about the power of the language. And then, I didn\u2019t identify with Cordelia. I sort of identified with Lear. I think it was because he went out into the storm. He didn\u2019t say, \u201cGive me my slippers and I\u2019ll get old and sit by the fire.\u201d I don\u2019t really know, but I wonder whether, both as a 14-year-old and an 80-year-old, there\u2019s a relationship of crisis. This was before I thought of acting or anything. And then later, after university and drama school, I had a vague idea that maybe it would be nice to play Lear. But I was 35 when I played it for the first time.Simon: We all played it when we were young. Brian: I was 44 when I played it. Paul Schofield was younger. Schofield was 42 when he played it. Simon: Everyone kept coming up to me and saying, \u201cOh you\u2019re so young\u201d. And I remember thinking, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not actually.\u201d Most people presumably play it in their fifties or sixties. Brian: Yeah, well, you got to have the energy for it for a start.Cordelia: Brian, I\u2019ve been reading your diary of the year you played Lear, in 1990 here at the National. Brian: Oh, you know, I couldn\u2019t find my copy today. I\u2019ve just ordered it from Amazon. Cordelia: So much of what you wrote strikes me as just about the exhaustion of playing the part. Brian: It was! It was tiring. Olivier played Lear in 1944. And then he did the film that I was involved with in 1983, when he was quite old and quite ill. But I\u2019ll tell you a quick story about that. So we were waiting in the wings and Olivier was going, \u201cOh it\u2019s so tiring. It\u2019s so fucking exhausting this part. I really find this part so fucking tiring. And it\u2019s the lines! I don\u2019t know the lines at all\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Did anybody see Michael Hordern play it on the television?\u201d And then we would be interrupted. He\u2019d be taken off. And then he\u2019d come back and go, \u201cI don\u2019t know my lines. I don\u2019t know a fucking word of this part. Not a word\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Did anybody see Michael Hordern do it?\u201d And nobody said anything. He knew his lines. He knew all of his lines. And this, I swear to God \u2014 may God strike me down dead if this didn\u2019t happen \u2014 he said, \u201cbut I\u2019m still a better fucking actor than him any day!\u201d We couldn\u2019t believe it. The man, you know, suddenly, this old dying man was just suddenly [full of life]. Cordelia: How old do we think Lear is? Because you, Kathryn, played him quite old and frail, right? Michael Billington said something like \u201ca geriatric toddler\u201d of your performance, in his review. Kathryn: The thing about being a girl as well was that I\u2019m not big and thunderous and mountainous. And I was 35 the first time. So there was the gender and the age thing to address. I\u00a0remember going into an Iceland, you know, the supermarket, opposite the theatre to buy something, and there was a frail old gentleman. And I went, \u201cRight. OK. That\u2019s him.\u201d I\u00a0thought, were the crowds to part, why couldn\u2019t he be a king? I was going for the fragility.Simon: You don\u2019t have to be big. Brian: Not with your voice, Kathryn. You\u2019re blessed with this extraordinary voice. Kathryn: I did see a rendering where somebody \u2014 who shall be nameless \u2014 didn\u2019t play the age, and that doesn\u2019t make sense. You can\u2019t not. Simon: No. It\u2019s so accurate in terms of what we now know about growing old. I think Shakespeare saw or knew somebody very old, because there\u2019s so many details about forgetting your words. Brian: A lot of that comes out with the relationship with the Fool. The Fool gets him going and he\u2019s trying to catch him out and trying to jog him into some kind of life force. Simon: He\u2019s the one who he says \u201cOh let me not be mad\u201d to\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Brian: Exactly. Simon: The first mention of the word. Cordelia: Greg, Kathryn played the Fool to your Lear in 2010 for the RSC at Stratford. What was your dynamic? Greg: Close. We sure were close. Tight. Kathryn: Incredibly bonded, yeah. Cordelia: I remember seeing that production, Greg, and I saw you play Leontes in The Winter\u2019s Tale the year before. I\u2019ve always thought there\u2019s something interesting in the movement in Shakespeare\u2019s writing from Leontes to Lear. You\u2019ve got these two jealous kings who are tyrants in different ways, and neither of them has real redemption. There\u2019s no clear redemption for Leontes either (there\u2019s a happy ending of sorts, but it\u2019s not obviously forgiveness). What did you feel about the transition from one part to the other?Greg: In mountain terms, Leontes was halfway up, and Lear was much further up. I used to watch the [Akira] Kurosawa film, Ran, on a daily basis. I\u00a0think it\u2019s my favourite film version of Lear. Brian: It\u2019s great. Greg: It\u2019s astonishing, its depth and its\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Brian: It\u2019s boldness. Greg: I\u2019d love to have another go at Lear.Brian, Kathryn and Simon: Yes.Greg: I now think I understand much more the concept of being shattered, utterly shattered. And the difference between Lear and let\u2019s say Hamlet or Othello or Macbeth is he is utterly shattered. So much so that he\u2019s able to get down on his knees and go, \u201cAlthough all those people haven\u2019t got anything in life, I know how they feel. I feel pity for them.\u201d And that\u2019s because the entire construct of his ego has been shattered. Of course, Hamlet\u2019s shattered and so is Macbeth. And so is Othello. But there\u2019s something about the shattering of Lear which is truly monumental. And I think that\u2019s what makes it on another level to the plays that surround it, which are also masterpieces, I\u2019m not saying they\u2019re not. But I know I didn\u2019t get anywhere near it. I had a go and I\u2019d like another. Simon (to Greg): There is a link between Leontes and Lear. How do you start both of those parts? Because the similar question for both of them is, why do they behave in the first scene like they do? Every actor has to make some conscious decision about why Lear divides the kingdom. And why Leontes is jealous.Greg: Right! So, when Lear says \u201cnecessity\u2019s sharp pinch\u201d, I used to be obsessed by the whole thing about Ananke. You know, the god of necessity. I think it was necessary for Leontes\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Simon: To be jealous?Greg: To be jealous. And I think it\u2019s necessary for Lear to go, \u201cTell me which one of you loves me best\u201d. Because without that necessity, that death of the ego, which he experiences beyond measure, would never have happened. Simon: You mean it\u2019s cosmically necessary? Cordelia: Rather than necessary for Shakespeare in a technical sense?Greg: Yes, I do. And it informs his relationship with the storm, with the elements. Kathryn: Yes, that\u2019s brilliantly articulated.Greg: Where does Leontes\u2019s jealousy come from? It just comes. Simon: My problem, perhaps more acutely with Leontes I think, is that I\u2019ve no idea where it comes from. As you say, it just is. But the thing about Lear is that it\u2019s such a stupid decision!Kathryn: I figured that Lear\u2019s in love with Cordelia. She\u2019s imminently about to be married and he can\u2019t really bear that \u2014 \u201cI thought to set my rest on her kind nursery\u201d. So I don\u2019t know, I have this picture of him saying, \u201cRight! you know, and then I\u2019ll come and live with you.\u201d Simon: And will he give her most of it? Kathryn: Yes. That was the plan. If it had gone according to plan, he would give her most of it and then go and live with France or Burgundy or whoever she marries. But be near her. I think he can\u2019t bear to part with her. It\u2019s linked with the patriarchal thing of, \u201cYou belong to me. And anyway, I love you. So you belong to me even more. Because I don\u2019t often love people. So if you\u2019re going to say nothing, then punishment will come.\u201dSimon: And punishment on the whole world too. Kathryn: I was reading Eve Ensler\u2019s The Apology, where she imagines her father apologising \u2014 the apology that he never made \u2014 for abusing her since she was five years old. And, I just thought, Ah, yeah, there\u2019s anyway a sort of, well, a love, an obsession with Cordelia. Simon: Do you think he might be aware of his failing powers? I mean why now?Kathryn: Yes. Brian: I think he seeks reassurance right from the word go. He really seeks reassurance from his family and the only way he can get it is by doing this elaborate thing, which is wrong. It\u2019s a big mistake, but he doesn\u2019t know how to do it any other way. And then it goes horribly wrong. Simon: Reassurance that he\u2019s still\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Brian: That he\u2019s loved. He needs love. He desperately needs love, Lear. And you can\u2019t buy love in that way. And that is so much of what goes on in the relationship with Goneril, the relationship with Regan. It\u2019s a family, essentially. And when you get older you seek that reassurance. I\u2019m now in my late seventies. And I now understand that more than I did then, when I played Lear in my forties. Simon: As a parentheses, I have to say that when he curses Goneril, I think that must be one of the most unpleasant speeches that Shakespeare ever wrote. I found it terribly upsetting every night to do that thing about \u2014 be barren. Brian: It\u2019s cruel. Simon: It\u2019s absolutely cruel. Brian: Because Regan is a lot worse than Goneril.Simon: Goneril\u2019s fine! She might be a bit irritating, but she\u2019s fine.Kathryn: Can I pick up on something Simon said about there being no redemption? Simon: All right go on. Kathryn: I disagree. Going back to Ananke. Lear does it because he has to, because he has to go on this path. He does kneel. He comes to the point of saying, \u201cI have taken too little care of this.\u201dBrian: But he comes to that point much later. Kathryn: What I mean is that, I can\u2019t regard it as a play with no redemption because his heart opens and opens gradually. That\u2019s a huge event in the spiritual journey, isn\u2019t it? So when does it start? I\u00a0guess it starts with \u201cpoor naked wretches\u201d. And then, \u201cIs there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?\u201d And then with Gloucester, \u201cI\u00a0know thee well enough, thy name is Gloucester, thou must be patient, we came crying hither\u201d. He spins all the time. So he goes, \u201cWe came crying hither. Thou know\u2019st the first time that we smell the air we wawl and cry. I will preach to thee, when we were born, we cry that we are come\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009\u201d, which is hugely kind of ironical, isn\u2019t it? That we cry. You know why babies cry? \u201cWe cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.\u201d That\u2019s why babies cry because they go, \u201cOh, fuck, I\u2019m on a stage of fools!\u201d Which is full of a kind of humour isn\u2019t it? Brian: There\u2019s also a lot in the play about dementia. I think there really is. And I think that \u201clet me not be mad\u201d, is the fact that he does go to an extreme and he kind of loses it. The craziness of him going out into the storm and trying to take on the elements. We did the play at Broadmoor [the psychiatric hospital] with a bunch of people in the room who were killers, people who had done horrific things. And when we got to the moment, where Lear asks. \u201cIs there any cause in nature for these hard hearts?\u201d It\u2019s something I\u2019ll never, ever forget as long as I live. There was a young woman in the front row who, we discovered later, had slashed her sister with a knife on the face and nearly garrotted her. She was locked up, and, apparently, she hadn\u2019t spoken until this moment. And when I asked \u201cis there any cause in nature for hard hearts?\u201d she said \u2014 I swear to God \u2014 she said, \u201cno cause, no cause, no cause\u201d. And for us, all of us on the stage, it was one of the moments when you go, this is the power of theatre. Kathryn: Was there a scene that you particularly \u201cenjoyed\u201d playing? Cordelia: Yes, everyone should answer that. Simon: Meeting with Cordelia. Brian: Yeah, when he wakes up. I love that scene. Simon: \u201cI am bound upon a wheel of fire.\u201d That is just magnificent. Brian (to Greg): What was yours? Greg: Meeting Gloucester, I think. Kathryn: I\u2019m hovering, but the one that kind of seized me was the last scene, the howl.Cordelia: How do you do that amazing line, \u201cHowl, howl, howl, howl. Oh you are men of stones\u201d? Kathryn: I think it\u2019s the scale of the play. In the Dover scene, the mad scene, I thought all right, we\u2019re in the belly of the whale now. And for me, that scene was hugely important. I always felt it is about loss itself. And when it gets to the howl, I always felt that is what the play is about. Simon: Immensely releasing that scene. Brian: I really loved the scenes with the Fool because in those scenes he could be more like himself, which was difficult in the other parts of the play when he\u2019s dealing with his children. And also I had a great Fool, which was David Bradley, I\u00a0couldn\u2019t get a better Fool than him. Kathryn: Yes. Brian: And the truth telling that the Fool does. Yeah. I love all those scenes. It\u2019s just that they\u2019re so challenging and Lear has to listen to this man. He has to take it in, because this is the only person who keeps him relatively on the straight and narrow. Nobody else does. Cordelia: As you say, he\u2019s a truth teller and fools generally are truth tellers. But in this play, there are two truth tellers, Cordelia and the Fool, who are often played by the same actor in a production.Brian: The distinction is one truth teller is your daughter, so there\u2019s a lot of baggage there, whether you like it or not. With the Fool, it\u2019s a straighter relationship in a way. Simon: Also when he says \u201cmy poor Fool is hanged\u201d when he\u2019s over the corpse of his child, I always think, the last thing I want the audience to be thinking is, \u201cOh, that\u2019s interesting because that\u2019s the same actor who played the Fool.\u201d Rather than just, that\u2019s his dead daughter in front of him. Greg: And how did you all do those \u201cnevers\u201d? Brian: Oh \u201cnever, never, never, never, never\u201d. Greg: Five nevers. How did you do it? Brian: It\u2019s to do with the contemplation of what \u201cnever\u201d means. You know, I think that that\u2019s why it\u2019s such a potent thing, the five nevers, because never is such an amazing concept. Kathryn: Marcello [Magni, her husband] was the Fool in my first production in 1997. He died, I was in denial about it, while we were doing the Globe production in 2022. Afterwards, I had this kind of visitation about those \u201cnevers\u201d. There\u2019s a strange thing in that last scene. Lear goes, \u201cI know when one is dead and when one lives, she\u2019s dead as earth.\u201d She. And then he goes, \u201cCordelia?\u201d Direct address. \u201cCordelia stay a little, what is\u2019t thou sayest?\u201d Direct address. And he keeps going back between \u201cshe\u201d and \u201cthou\u201d. And then he goes, \u201cThou\u2019lt come no more\u201d. Not \u201cshe\u2019ll come no more\u201d. \u201cThou\u2019lt come no more\u201d. Thou. And it\u2019s almost like Cordelia goes \u201cWhat, never?\u201d That he\u2019s explaining death to her. \u201cYou see how it is darling? You\u2019re never coming back.\u201d \u201cNever?\u201d he hears her ask. \u201cNo, never darling.\u201d \u201cWhat, never?\u201d \u201cNo, never, darling.\u201d I don\u2019t know, it just flipped in my head that it\u2019s his last ever story to his little girl. \u201cYou\u2019re never, ever, ever coming back.\u201d Simon: Jonathan Miller once said that \u201cto be, or not to be\u201d is an impossible statement because we have absolutely no conception of the second half of that sentence. We can\u2019t, as human beings, locate not being. And what you were saying just struck a chord about trying to define what \u201cnever\u201d means. It\u2019s almost impossible, isn\u2019t it? So he needs five goes at it. Greg: There\u2019s something about King Lear. It\u2019s such a massive, out-of-control truck of a play. I\u00a0mean, God knows it\u2019s just like \u2014 what\u2019s that film where he drags the boat through the jungle? Brian: The African Queen.Greg: Yes. It\u2019s that big. It\u2019s dragging that boat through the fucking jungle of human existence. That\u2019s the genius of Lear, it has its own motor. Brian: Quite right. When [the part] takes you over, it leads you. And you\u2019re going, \u201cam I going there?\u201d And yes, you\u2019ve got to fucking go there. And it\u2019s nothing to do with you. So in a way it\u2019s not about free will. You don\u2019t have the willpower to go, I\u2019m going to move it this way. It takes you. If you engage, it takes you. Greg: You don\u2019t do Shakespeare. Shakespeare does you. Brian: That\u2019s right. That\u2019s right. Greg: It just takes you there. And of course, you have\u2026Brian: To be open to it. Greg: You have to be open, and you have to have the voice and your mind and sensibilities and your soul and your heart. But actually, your job is to just lie down and get fucked by Shakespeare. Kathryn: Would you do it again? Lear? I would.Brian: I don\u2019t know. I think maybe. I don\u2019t know. I guess\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009Simon: That means yes.Cordelia: Would you, Simon? Greg, we know that you would.Simon: Probably.Brian: I mean, the only problem is learning the lines. Follow @FTMag to find out about our latest stories first and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Kathryn Hunter played King Lear twice. Greg Hicks took him on for the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford. Brian Cox was so consumed he spent a year writing a diary about the ordeal. And Simon Russell Beale played him at the National Theatre in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-98075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98076,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98075\/revisions\/98076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}