Post by Tyunglebower on Aug 12, 2004 13:02:31 GMT -5
What a great part Edmund would be to play. And while I do believe that there are many interpretations to the character, none of the performances or movies I have seen of King Lear have really explored what i think would be the most entertaining interpretation of the character, and one that I would either make use of myself, if I had the chance to play the character, or one I may, as a director, encourage my actor to explore.
Allow me to take, as a starting place, his first soliloquy from Act 1 Scene 2.
Usually, in my experience, Edmund is portrayed, especially during this section of the play, as a vengeful, hateful villain, consumed by anger, greed, and blood lust. Perhaps that is all very true, but as is the case with Richard III in his play, (whom I think Edmund has much in common with) I feel that the lines he is given to speak in the text of the play, give the actor a great opportunity to "eat this role up", or to have, at least initially, the audience eating out of his hand, as I think Richard somewhat succeeds at doing, despite the nearly instantaneous understanding that his plans are villainous. But Richard is a villain we almost root for, if not his purpose, than at least the spirit of his audaciousness and style. This is so because he in a way seduces the audience. We want him to lose, eventually, but we cannot deny that we have enjoyed the ride he takes us on, a ride we would have been denied had he been wholly good in the first place.
It is not at all a stretch to see Edmund in the same way, and to allow us to enjoy his all too brief scenes of deliciously charming evil. Edmund too can seduce us.
Thou, nature, art my goddess, to thy law
My services are bound.
Edmunds first lines spoken while alone could in fact be spoken in anger, as a protest to the belief system of others. Could they not, however, also be spoken with a lilt; as an introduction to his vanity? Almost as if to say that it is not society, religion, or even legality that he feels bound to follow, but in fact, "nature", nature being the state that each of us find ourselves in, when simply acting on our more fundamental instincts and intuitions. If taken in this light, all that follows in his speech reveals a simple intention to make use of those aspects of his nature that will help him obtain maximum comforts.
A director would make a very compelling choice to have his Edmund staring cunningly into a mirror at his own reflection, when delivering the first two lines of this monologue.
He even seems to take pride in his status as a bastard child, all of whom, he says, are conceived in the "lusty stealth of nature", as opposed to the "dull, stale, tired bed" of monogamous relationships. For to him, to be conceived thus, provides him with a "fierce quality", unmatched by "honest woman's issue".
So we have Edmund, addressing himself somewhat, announcing that it is nature, and nothing more, on which he relies and to which he is subservient. Turning to the audience, (and perhaps challenging some of their conventions) he slyly begins tosses aside any notion of social standards dictating his life. He wishes to avoid standing in the "plague of custom", that would require him to "permit the curiosity of nations" to deprive him, simply because he is not only a bastard, but not a first born.
As mentioned earlier, he moves on to mention how all of his fine qualities are at least at powerful as those of legitimate children. A greater depth is created for the character, not to mention a far more interesting scene, when this indictment is made in an off handed, flippant manner, more in tune with his established vanity, as opposed to the whimpering, angered, spoiled diatribe of a man/boy who wishes more than he has been given. Perhaps he even chuckles as he thinks of the temerity of some who would rank the great likes of himself lower than many of his legitimate, ("a fine word, legitimate!") counterparts in society.
In this vein he moves on to mock his own legitimate brother, and states that he must have Edgar's land. Need this be only vengeance? Or merely, an almost afterthought to a man who has shown that he is little worried about anything but his own advancement, and is indeed willing to do anything in order to secure it? The latter, again, I feel, brings about a far more entertaining figure, than does that easier, and perhaps more accepted convention of the rage filled younger bastard brother, that spits fire when alone.
Imagine the speech ending, not with a conniving sneer, or thoughts of blood, but with Edmund with a glass of wine, or some such drink, raised to the heavens, as he smugly declares what is undoubtedly his greatest line in the play,
Now gods, stand up for bastards!
(Almost as if to say, "whatever millions of different gods that are out there that these fools around me choose to pray to, let such gods take a lesson from my book, and stand up, instead, for bastards, here and everywhere!")
With another laugh, he drinks his own toast, and so, with letter in hand, sets into motion the chain of events, which readers of the play are of course familiar with.
The preceding is only one interpretation of course. But to deliver the speech and present the character in his true form thus, (as opposed to the mask he was wearing in the first scene), creates in the audiences mind an Edmund who is evil, but charming, selfish, but seductive, possessed of a narrow minded purpose to life, but no less possessed with a very particular panache for acknowledging it and pursuing it.
I think the characterization I refer to here for Edmund is something of a cross between the cool, mostly detached bemusement of a Hannibal Lecture, and the audacious, cranky jocularity of Alan Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
Though I will not go into detail here, I think one will find as one reads, that Edmund's later lines, and especially his ultimate end, (like one who has played a game as well as he could, but lost), take on a whole new life when the character is seen in such a manner.
(I am indebted to A.C. Bradley's lecture on the characters of King Lear, as found in his book Shakespearean Tragedy, published in England in 1904 by Macmillan and Company.)
Allow me to take, as a starting place, his first soliloquy from Act 1 Scene 2.
Usually, in my experience, Edmund is portrayed, especially during this section of the play, as a vengeful, hateful villain, consumed by anger, greed, and blood lust. Perhaps that is all very true, but as is the case with Richard III in his play, (whom I think Edmund has much in common with) I feel that the lines he is given to speak in the text of the play, give the actor a great opportunity to "eat this role up", or to have, at least initially, the audience eating out of his hand, as I think Richard somewhat succeeds at doing, despite the nearly instantaneous understanding that his plans are villainous. But Richard is a villain we almost root for, if not his purpose, than at least the spirit of his audaciousness and style. This is so because he in a way seduces the audience. We want him to lose, eventually, but we cannot deny that we have enjoyed the ride he takes us on, a ride we would have been denied had he been wholly good in the first place.
It is not at all a stretch to see Edmund in the same way, and to allow us to enjoy his all too brief scenes of deliciously charming evil. Edmund too can seduce us.
Thou, nature, art my goddess, to thy law
My services are bound.
Edmunds first lines spoken while alone could in fact be spoken in anger, as a protest to the belief system of others. Could they not, however, also be spoken with a lilt; as an introduction to his vanity? Almost as if to say that it is not society, religion, or even legality that he feels bound to follow, but in fact, "nature", nature being the state that each of us find ourselves in, when simply acting on our more fundamental instincts and intuitions. If taken in this light, all that follows in his speech reveals a simple intention to make use of those aspects of his nature that will help him obtain maximum comforts.
A director would make a very compelling choice to have his Edmund staring cunningly into a mirror at his own reflection, when delivering the first two lines of this monologue.
He even seems to take pride in his status as a bastard child, all of whom, he says, are conceived in the "lusty stealth of nature", as opposed to the "dull, stale, tired bed" of monogamous relationships. For to him, to be conceived thus, provides him with a "fierce quality", unmatched by "honest woman's issue".
So we have Edmund, addressing himself somewhat, announcing that it is nature, and nothing more, on which he relies and to which he is subservient. Turning to the audience, (and perhaps challenging some of their conventions) he slyly begins tosses aside any notion of social standards dictating his life. He wishes to avoid standing in the "plague of custom", that would require him to "permit the curiosity of nations" to deprive him, simply because he is not only a bastard, but not a first born.
As mentioned earlier, he moves on to mention how all of his fine qualities are at least at powerful as those of legitimate children. A greater depth is created for the character, not to mention a far more interesting scene, when this indictment is made in an off handed, flippant manner, more in tune with his established vanity, as opposed to the whimpering, angered, spoiled diatribe of a man/boy who wishes more than he has been given. Perhaps he even chuckles as he thinks of the temerity of some who would rank the great likes of himself lower than many of his legitimate, ("a fine word, legitimate!") counterparts in society.
In this vein he moves on to mock his own legitimate brother, and states that he must have Edgar's land. Need this be only vengeance? Or merely, an almost afterthought to a man who has shown that he is little worried about anything but his own advancement, and is indeed willing to do anything in order to secure it? The latter, again, I feel, brings about a far more entertaining figure, than does that easier, and perhaps more accepted convention of the rage filled younger bastard brother, that spits fire when alone.
Imagine the speech ending, not with a conniving sneer, or thoughts of blood, but with Edmund with a glass of wine, or some such drink, raised to the heavens, as he smugly declares what is undoubtedly his greatest line in the play,
Now gods, stand up for bastards!
(Almost as if to say, "whatever millions of different gods that are out there that these fools around me choose to pray to, let such gods take a lesson from my book, and stand up, instead, for bastards, here and everywhere!")
With another laugh, he drinks his own toast, and so, with letter in hand, sets into motion the chain of events, which readers of the play are of course familiar with.
The preceding is only one interpretation of course. But to deliver the speech and present the character in his true form thus, (as opposed to the mask he was wearing in the first scene), creates in the audiences mind an Edmund who is evil, but charming, selfish, but seductive, possessed of a narrow minded purpose to life, but no less possessed with a very particular panache for acknowledging it and pursuing it.
I think the characterization I refer to here for Edmund is something of a cross between the cool, mostly detached bemusement of a Hannibal Lecture, and the audacious, cranky jocularity of Alan Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
Though I will not go into detail here, I think one will find as one reads, that Edmund's later lines, and especially his ultimate end, (like one who has played a game as well as he could, but lost), take on a whole new life when the character is seen in such a manner.
(I am indebted to A.C. Bradley's lecture on the characters of King Lear, as found in his book Shakespearean Tragedy, published in England in 1904 by Macmillan and Company.)