The Lesson of Lear

 On March 15, 2023, Nirmala and I traveled to Washington D.C. to attend a riveting performance of King Lear at the Shakespeare Theater.

1.

Of all the great tragedies written by Shakespeare, I had found King Lear the most difficult to appreciate. How can an old man be so foolish as to banish his favorite daughter for not having praised him enough? And how is it that he was unable to see through the fulsome praise of his daughters? Now that I have reached Lear's age, when I too have been having some difficulty coming to terms with old age, I see things differently--and the excellent performance we attended helped me to change my mind. Now I understand why many view Lear as Shakespeare's greatest achievement.

First, I would like to put Regan's and Goneril's speeches in contemporary context. When the eldest sister, Goneril, is given the opportunity to state how much she loves her aged father, she replies,

Sir, I do love you more than words can wield the matter:/ Dearer than eyesight, space, or liberty,/Beyond what can be valued rich or rare, / No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor,/As much a child e'er loved, or father friend,/ A love that makes breath poor and speech unable,/ Beyond all manner of so much I love you.                  

                                                           Lear, 1:1 lines 46-53

Regan subsequently gives an equally unctuous speech--and equally clever: she knows what her father wants to hear, and, without concerns for her father's welfare, says it. 

I am thus reminded of the lies contemporary politicians tell their constituents in this very politically divided nation. The latter are not concerned with truth as much as they are with hearing what they want to hear.  The primary concern of such politicians is to stay in power, a desire so strong that it trumps what politicians are supposed to do: serve the public. 

What we can learn from Lear at this point is the necessity of critical thinking. 

Lear at this stage of the play is extremely vulnerable, and his elder daughters know it. Just like many U.S. citizens, he feels threatened by loss of meaning--age and unemployment are primary examples of ways to debilitate critical thinking. 

Cordelia, his youngest, however, tells her father exactly what he doesn't want to hear. When Lear asks her, "What can you say to draw a third more opulent than your sisters?," she replies, "Nothing, my Lord."

Why does this one word trigger such anger in Lear? Why does this word result in a disinheritance of his honest daughter that ensures that the play will end in tragedy? It is because, at least in this interpretation, Lear fears becoming nothing himself. He knows that life is a one-way journey from cradle to grave; he knows that he is close to the end of that journey. His ego is invested in seeing himself as an absolute monarch; he's used to commanding, he's used to being obeyed. It's as if Time is telling him, "You put on a nice show. You've grown old; the play is over. Time is your master now, come with me!" 

Shouldn't Lear have known better than to banish Cordelia? Of course he should have. But his refusal to come to terms with the inevitability of old age has made him very edgy and volatile. Like a crazed Quijote, he charges his windmill--in this case, death--without any concern for all the pancho villas in his way. 

2.

The performance of Lear which we attended on March 15, 2023, was among the best theater experiences we've ever had. Patrick Page, who played Lear, was masterful. The productions I am familiar with were all marred by Lears who portray neither the physical weaknesses of age nor the mental decline that often accompanies old age. For instance, Ran, the Kurasawa/Japanese retelling of Lear, had the character--who admittedly very much looked the part--running up and down hills as if he was a man of thirty. Not in Page's interpretation. His Lear, for instance, demonstrated the main character's vulnerability and irascibility by raising his voice in anger on several occasions. This irascibility is characteristic of persons, especially old persons, who become emotionally labile due to fear of losing control and/or are simply not feeling well. Page acted splendidly throughout the play. Simon Goodwin's excellent direction indicated Lear's decline explicitly: he  had Lear, after ranting on the heath, placed in a hospital bed receiving IV fluids.

 I don't usually enjoy a contemporary staging of Shakespeare's tragedies, but Goodwin's was subtle and worked well.   The modernizations were excellent indicators that follies and vanities are not limited to the Elizabethan era. For instance, Goneril and Regan, dressed in bright-colored, expensive clothes and wearing spike heels, looked like they could have starred in Real Housewives. (Cordelia, in contrast, was dressed in black and wore flats.)

All the other cast members were a good deal more than adequate. Page's performance, however, stood out: Never before have I witnessed such a stellar interpretation of Lear's descent from king to madness then to a broken man who learned his lesson too late.

3.

What is the moral of this play? It certainly has one, which we will soon discuss. Shakespeare, however, was first and foremost a dramatist; for aesthetic  reasons, he's going to let those audience members who are so inclined infer any moral message. Shakespeare is not a Hallmark Card.

Shakespeare's plays, especially the tragedies, often contain a message, a moral, if you like. But he is most often indirect and extremely subtle; his tragedies are by no means as direct as an Aesop fable. Dickenson's famous line, "Tell all the truth, but tell it slant," comes to mind. For instance, Hamlet, being the smartest person of the play, is burdened by the task he sets himself: to restore order in troubled times: "The times are out of joint, O cursed spite/that ever I was born to set it right." Later on, after facing death, he comes to a new realization, accepting things as they are, and not how his  ego wished things to be. "There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be not now, 'tis to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all."  Hamlet finally learns that the ego's 'hands are much too short to box with God.' The irony is that Hamlet, having transcended his immaturity, is finally ready to be king when he is poisoned by Laertes. Hamlet's gain in wisdom, however, must be inferred; it is never directly stated.

Lear, in my interpretation, is also about transcending egotistic vanity; he learns that relationships are what's essential. This knowledge, that is, wisdom, often comes with age, as the mature person realizes that exclusive identification with the self no longer is tenable as the body breaks down. Egotistic behavior--to a degree-- is more acceptable in younger individuals, who are bent on establishing themselves in the world. It is especially tragic in older individuals; an arrogant greybeard is often ridiculous. Older people, however, still have a lot to offer emotionally to those around them. The realization that one is not the center of the universe; this realization of joyous relationship with the universe, especially in the form of loving one's neighbor, is called wisdom. This attitude helps compensate for the back pain, weak knees and all other increasingly painful declines of old age.

Lear lacks this wisdom throughout most of the play. Having been an absolute monarch, Lear was  surrounded by yes men his entire life. He learns the hard way that the basis of most of those yeses was not love, but acquiescence to power. He wants assurances from this daughters that they love him unconditionally.  Not even Cordelia can give him that.  He realizes that it is time to give up power, but still wants power after he abdicates. He demands that each of the elder sisters accept an entourage of one hundred knights, a masculine court, as it were, which must accompany him during his monthly visits. We certainly can have some sympathy for Goneril and Regan when the unruly knights cause havoc in their households. We lose all sympathy, however, when one sister tells her husband that Lear must learn his lesson and not be prevented from wandering in his madness while a storm rages. No one who loves her father would ever permit that.

In Act l Scene V, the Fool tells Lear, "Thou shouldst not have been old before thou hadst been wise." Lear learns too late the importance of what he has always had: Cordelia's love.

The Fool's words are  the key to the entire drama and a lesson for us all.

Despite what a great poet wrote, it is not wise to "Rage, rage, against the dying of the light," lest we wander in darkness like Gloucester, lest we wander in madness like Lear. What should an old person do then? The best way to leave the world is to become the World, as it were; there is only one way to accomplish this. Auden perhaps said it best: "We must love one another or die."

I recently wrote a poem that sums up the theme of this essay. It is entitled "The Lesson of Lear."

Age can turn kingdoms into glue traps;

age can turn kings into mice.

The loveless thrive--until they don't;

Senescence is a painful cage;

when there's no exit, where can one go?

when there's no exit, what must one do?

Self decline isn't inevitable.

'Against the dying of the light,' rage

is not the answer. What about love?