Staging "King Lear" in India, 1989: "King Lear" as the Indian Maharaja

Abstract

King Lear has been a challenge to actors all over the world. Charles Lamb decreed that the play was unfit for the stage. Nineteenth-century directors shelved it. But in the 20th century, Lear has surfaced as the highest theatrical expression of the Bard. The story is embedded in the fables of both East and West. In an Indian legend, a temperamental aging maharaja wants to divide his kingdom among his three daughters and asks them how much they love him. The eldest daughter compares her love to honey, the second to nectar, and the third-the most beloved one-to salt. The maharaja flares up, banishes his third daughter, and divides his kingdom between the older sisters, retaining his crown. Tragedy follows. I happened to see four or five famous performances on the British stage. John Gielgud's Kabuki-flavored Lear (1950) was whimsical, his crown resembling an inverted hat-stand mocked by London viewers. But Bertolt Brecht recommended his actors to witness this profound production for its alienation effect, its chiseled speeches directed toward the audience's reason rather than emotion. Charles Laughton in a Shakespeare Memorial Theatre production (I959) was a plump FatherChristmas Lear who could not comprehend the political intrigues of his court nor the perfidy of his daughters. Paul Scofield's Lear (1962), seen through the eyes of Goneril and Regan, was a senile, irrational, impossible father, unfit to rule. He refused to take the responsibilities of the crown, yet stubbornly held onto it. The older daughters treated him with fear and caution lest he turn his mad anger on them. Laurence Olivier's Lear (an opulent TV production in 1984) was a despotic Khan with a neatly trimmed gray beard, egocentric, and terrifyingly stubborn. In the opening scene his courtiers kneel and lie flat on their bellies, kissing the earth in abject obedience. Due to age and the flatterers around him, he has lost his ability to discern good from bad. Cordelia refuses to feed his demands for flattery. He banishes her. In the last act, the doddering Lear is stripped of everything. Shivering and feverish, soaked in mud and rain, lying unconscious, he is picked up by Cordelia's advancing generals and made to rest. He is washed, his clothes changed, his beard shaved off. He is divested of his majesty, his kingly absolutism. From the depths of misery, Lear regains his humanity and balance.