BB: King Lear, Act IV

Artwork – Leigh MacRae

After a week off for the long Easter weekend, welcome Brawlers to act IV of Shakespeare’s bleak masterpiece, King Lear!

Listen to or download the podcast.

Also, How awesome is all of this artwork, right?

If act III is the height of the storm, then act IV of King Lear takes us on walk through the devastation after the hurricane winds have begun to let up… sort of.

In the last act, Lear was cast out into the wilderness by his daughters. Gloucester was betrayed by his son Edmund and blinded by the cruel Cornwall and Regan. As for the fool? He’s wandered off-stage, never to be seen again.

In act IV scene 1, Edgar – still in disguise as Tom O’Bedlam – encounters his blinded father by the heath where he had previously taken shelter with Lear, Kent and the fool. When Edgar sees what has become of his father, he is moved to pity but somehow manages to keep up his disguise and offers to serve as his eyes. Gloucester pays Edgar to lead him to the cliffs of Dover. Gloucester’s intention is plain: he means to jump to his death.

It seems that Kent’s message made it to Cordelia and she is headed for England with an army from France and intends to reclaims the kingdom from her sisters and rescue Lear. Goneril, Edmund and Oswald are discussing the preparations for war at the start of scene 2. However, it seems that not everybody is equally committed to defend this territory from Cordelia’s armies. Albany appears to be all too happy that Goneril and Regan’s control of England is being threatened and appears to have very little intention of fighting. Fearing that she cannot trust her “Milk-liver’d man” Albany, Goneril places Edmund in charge of her forces. Additionally, she gives him some token of her affection to indicate that she has no love for Albany. of course, moments later Albany himself shows up to answer these charges of cowardice and instead accuse her of being cruel and heartless. When he hears that Gloucester has lost his eyes, he vows to avenge him.

By scene 3, the French forces has landed at Dover and made contact with Kent. We learn that the King of France has not accompanied this army as some pressing business called him back to France. We also learn that Cordelia was genuinely moved by Kent’s letters about her father. Surprise, surprise: she’s Lear’s good daughter. Kent informs them that Lear is in Dover and he leaves to bring him back to Cordelia.

The next scene is a short exchange between Cordelia and the doctor. He also sends out more men to find lear and bring him back. Cordelia asks him; can Lear be cured? The doctor appears confident that he can do so. Towards the end, a messenger arrives to inform Cordelia that the English forces are marching. She is ready to meet them and confesses that she is not here to conquer England but because she loves her father.

Oswald has made his way to Regan’s castle in scene 5. She asks about whether or not Albany’s forces has joined the battle on their side. Oswald says yes, but that Goneril is a better soldier as she is more committed to the cause. Regan also asks Oswald about a letter Goneril is asking him to deliver to Edmund. A jealous Regan asks about the contents of the letter but Oswald denies any knowledge of the contents. Regan does not seem convinced. She tells him to put Goneril on guard: she wants Edmund for herself and seeing as Cornwall is dead (did we miss something?), she’s a better match than she is. She also gives him a note to deliver to Edmund.

Edgar has lead Gloucester to the fields near Dover in scene 6 but he has no intention of letting his father commit suicide. Instead, Edgar vividly describes the imagined view from the cliffs of Dover to convince his father that they are at the right spot and then tells him to jump. However, Gloucester only falls a few feet and is greeted ‘at the bottom of the cliff’ by Edgar posing as some random passer-by. He acts amazed and tells Gloucester that his life has been miraculously saved when he flew down the cliff instead of falling. Edgar also describes how he appears to have jumped and escaped some devilish influence personified by the deamon-hunted Tom O’Bedlam.

That’s a really interesting scene. So much of Shakespeare’s theatre is descriptive. We’re not really used to this. Motion pictures can – and do – show us everything. If we were to depict this in a movie, there’s a good chance that we would see Edgar and Gloucester in what could pass for the fields outside Dover. Maybe Gloucester is standing on a small rise in the field – just high enough so he can feel like he’s falling for just a second before hitting the ground when he jumps. Perhaps we can actually hear the sound of the cliffs in the distance – or something that could pass for it. However, the whole point of this scene is that there’s nothing like that. It’s entirely dependant on Edgar’s description for its effect.

In some ways, maybe our eyes are getting in the way? Gloucester seems to think so.

Shakespeare often embeds these descriptive moments in his plays: he’ll tell us what time of day it is, have dialogue about where the action is supposed to be taking place, or even tell us what the weather is like. But really, it never happens on stage, it’s all in our minds just like Gloucester’s attempted suicide happens only in his mind.

And yet, in the same way that Gloucester’s make-belive miracle has made him stop thinking about suicide, these made-up scenes have lead us to think about suicide, suffering, infirmity, old age and madness. This scene is an elaborate argument in defense of the power of literature and storytelling.

Very meta. Very Shakespeare.

After this moment, King Lear wanders on stage. He is rambling about how he is the rightful king and how that is a title his daughters cannot take away from him. In fact, part of the evidence he points to is that his face is the mark of legal tender: it shows up on British money. Gloucester and Lear recognise one another and spend some time commiserating. Cordelia and Kent’s people find Lear and bring him off-stage towards Cordelia’s camp. Edgar and Gloucester remain behind. Oswald arrives on the scene and remembering what Regan told him earlier – that she wished she’s killed Gloucester after they blinded him – decides to kill Gloucester. Edgar interposed himself and stats speaking in a funny Eastern European or evil Bond villain accent.

They fight and Edgar kills Oswald. With his dying breath, he tells Edgar that if he’s looking to advance his station, he should deliver the letters Oswald is carrying to Edmond.

Why does he tell him this? Who the hell knows.

However, it’s just what you would expect at this point: the scene where the villain’s evil plot is completely revealed to the hero and the audience, thereby giving them the tools they need to oppose the villain. We learn that Edmund has made deals with both sisters and that the two sisters are planing on betraying one another for his sake. Edgar keeps the letters as evidence. He also finally reveals his identity to his father.

At long last, Lear and Cordelia are reunited in scene 7. It seems that the doctor has successfully cured him of whatever madness had possessed him. Cordelia thanks Kent for his loyal service and offers to proclaim his part in keeping Lear safe but Kent asks her not to, explaining that he still needs to keep his disguise for a while longer. After a few moments, Lear awakens. He is confused by the clean clothes he has on and believes himself to be dead for a few moments. He tells Cordelia that if she wants to be rid of him, he will gladly kill himself but she reassures him and they walk out together. Kent confirms Regan’s earlier statement: seems that Cornwall was killed but it’s not clear how he died… And I’m sure that Regan had absolutely nothing to do with that.

What’s going to happen next? I won’t give you any specifics, but I bet you’re not going to like it.

Tune in next week for the dramatic conclusion of King Lear! (And I can assure you that it will be dramatic!)

(Podcast recorded and edited by Daniel J. Rowe, Show notes by Eric Jean)

Bonus sonnet 52 read by Stephanie.

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April 5, 2013 0

Talking About the Weather – Man vs. Wild… er, Nature?

Artwork - Leigh MacRae — Artwork – Leigh MacRae

Listen to or download the podcast.

Welcome Brawlers, to a special episode of the Bard Brawl!

I promised you a post on the weather, astrology and nature in King Lear. However, we’ve done one better: Daniel and I got together yesterday for a short discussion of the play – and yes, we did talk about the weather.

There are a lot of different themes in Lear, a bunch of which we list and touch upon in this episode. However, King Lear is really a play about “Nature”.

Notice the scare quotes and the capital ‘N’? Yeah, there’s a good reason for that.

When we think of nature, we tend to think of birds, trees, hiking, national parks, Bear Grylls, whatever. And yes, nature could mean that to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, too. However, Shakespeare is much more interested in Nature, as in human nature.

The idea of Nature, what is it, and whether it is in fact good or bad, is very much up for grabs in this play. One of the (many) reasons Lear is still so popular is that even in the present, we haven’t managed to agree on the character of “Human Nature”. Is there even such a thing?

While this is grossly oversimplifying things, there tends to to be two models of Nature in the play.

On the one hand, we have the model which Lear and Gloucester subscribe to. In their view, daughters and sons are ‘by nature’ inclined to love their parents. That natural bond is supposed to ensure that children and parents get along and that children will take care of their parents when they are no longer able to care for themselves.

Also, Gloucester is very much interested in astrology and celestial events which he sees as portents of things to come in the realm of human affairs. It is entirely natural to him to see a comet streak across the sky and to associate that with some impending disaster in society. Why? because it suggests that some part of this well-oiled system is out of balance. When everything is working naturally, the natural world is sympathetic to and connected with humanity – and has humanity’s best interests at heart.

Another way of saying this is that Nature programs these behaviours into us in order to prevent society from crumbling into chaos. As a result, Lear and Gloucester place a tremendous amount of trust in this system.

What does Lear call Goneril and Regan after he is refused admittance with his knights: “You unnatural hags!” That is, their behaviour runs contrary to the natural model of the parent-child relationship.

And then there’s Edmond.

Clearly, he’s got no interest in his daily horoscope.

And why would he? According to his father’s model of the universe, he’s supposed to be the reject, the one left out, somehow less important or valued because of a simple accident of birth.

In his first speech, Edmond days; “Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law / My services are bound.” Clearly, he’s not talking about the same ‘Nature’ which Lear and Gloucester are referring to. His understanding of nature is the complete opposite of Lear and Gloucester’s.

Yet it is perhaps much closer to what we might think of when we consider human nature.

Lear and Gloucester live in a world where Nature runs everything, where your successes and failures are the result of the world working for or against you. However, Edmund sees human nature as self-directed and he’s pretty straight-forward with us: You think I’m ruthless and conniving because I was born out of wedlock?

My
father compounded with my mother under the
dragon’s tail; and my nativity was under Ursa
major; so that it follows, I am rough and
lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am,
had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing.

Edmond admits that he chose to act this way. He wasn’t born this way, and the planets had nothing to do with it.

Can’t get enough of the Lear? Check out Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time podcast on the fated king.

Enjoy your holidays and we’ll be here again next week for act IV of King Lear.

Bonus sonnet 22 read by Hannah Dorozio.

(Podcast recorded and edited by Daniel J. Rowe, Show notes by Eric Jean, music by Jack Konorska)

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March 29, 2013 1

BB: King Lear, Act III

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
mite flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, an germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!
— King Lear, Act III, scene 2

The storm is upon us!

Welcome Brawlers to Act III of King Lear!

Listen to or download the podcast.

A lot of ground to cover today!

The gates of Gloucester’s castle have been shut by Cornwall and Regan and Lear and his followers have been cast into the stormy wilderness. Edgar has fled into the woods as well, disguised as a a mad beggar. In fact, as act III, scene 1 opens, Kent is presently searching for his king. He enlists the help of a gentleman to find him. It seems that Kent has been able to send a message to Cordelia in France, in which he tells her what her sisters have done to Lear. She and the King of France are preparing an army to march on England and they need to keep Lear safe.

While Kent has yet to find Lear, we see him right from the start of scene 2. He is shouting at the storm, accusing the weather of conspiring with his two daughters, Regan and Goneril, to ruin him. The fool is trying to plead with him to seek out shelter but Lear refuses. Finally Kent arrives and describes the storm as the worse he has ever seen. He mentions that he has found a hovel nearby where they can seek shelter. For his part, Lear seems to have no interest but then, seemingly moved to compassion at the sight of his suffering fool, agrees to take shelter. Then the fool pronounces a prophecy which he mentions comes from Merlin even though Merlin will only show up after Lear’s gone. Strange stuff.

Scene 3 is a short exchange between Edmund and Gloucester. Gloucester complains to Edmund that he does not at all approve of Regan and Cornwall’s exiling of King Lear. He also confides in Edmund – who Gloucester still believes has his best interest at heart – that he has received some news that Cordelia and the king of France are sending troops to England. Conveniently (for Edmund, at least), Gloucester has left this ridiculously incriminating letter in his ‘closet…’ No way anyone will find it, right? Oh, wait – Edmund is a lying scumbag. That won’t end well.

Kent leads Lear and the fool to the nearby hovel but Lear seems hesitant to enter. As he stands in front of the house, he seems to be arguing with himself and trying to keep his madness at bay. He talks about how the tempest which is going on around them is nothing compared to the storm in his mind. While Lear initially refuses to enter, he is again moved by pity for the fool and asks the fool to enter into the house. However, the house is already occupied: Edgar is hiding inside this same house. What an unbelievable coincidence! All of these Good Guys™ in the same place! There’s some discussion between the Fool and Edgar who is clearly interested in showing-up Lear and the Fool in crazy factor. You<ll want to listen to the podcast to get the full effect: Zoey was totally method with Edgar. Many of the brawlers were channelling Stanislavsky, actually.

Anyhow. So, Gloucester seems to have left his totally super-incriminating evidence carefully guarded by Edmund and has managed to find Lear and the other in the hovel. Of course, he does not recognise his son Edgar, who is walking around in his underwear, nor Kent, who is probably only wearing a different coloured shirt. Whatever. He does manage to get Lear indoors.

Edmund brings Gloucester’s letter to Cornwall in scene 5, who pronounces Edmund’s father a traitor. Edmund feigns regret over having to do his duty in this way. I guess the Duke of Cornwall ‘outranks’ the Duke of Gloucester, who is also his father? Cornwall tells him his father’s sa good as gone and that Edmund’s going to be the new Duke of Gloucester soon. Will Cornwall and Regan finally move out of his castle when he does become Gloucester?

Lear and his party have finally all taken shelter in the hovel and a maddened Lear decides to put his daughters on trial in scene 6. He conscripts Edgar, the Fool and a stool and sets up a mock court. While he is playing out his fantasy of justice, Edgar seems about to drop his disguise but manages to hold back his tears. He will have plenty to cry about later, though. Meanwhile, Gloucester tells Kent about Cordelia and France who are sending troops to support Lear. He tells him to make sure to lead Lear to Dover, which is where France’s forces will be landing.

And then, in scene 7, Gloucester makes the mistake of going back his castle where Regan and Cornwall are waiting for him. They are making preparations for war. They learn from Oswald that Lear is headed for Dover. Cornwall and Regan capture Gloucester and accuse him of treason. Of course, Gloucester denies that it is treasonous to help the old king but he does admit to them that Lear is on his way to Dover. They decide that the right penalty is for Cornwall to poke out one of his eyes with his boot!

Regan isn’t satisfied and tells him to take out the other eye as well!

WHAT?!?

Thankfully, one of the servants seems disgusted and tries to stop them. It doesn’t really amount to much, though: Regan stabs him and kills him.

And as if that was not enough, they then thrown Gloucester out of the castle. Reminder: this is going on in Gloucester’s own castle, and is being done to him by his ‘guests.’ Youch!

On the show, we talked a bit about the source texts for King Lear. Two of the more prominent and likely sources include a section on Leir of Britain from the medieval ‘historian’ Geoffrey of Monmouth. He’s the same guy who wrote about Merlin and who made the claims that the Tudor monarchs were descended from King Arthur and connected to the Roman Empire. Basically, King Arthur is a descendant of Aeneas’s son Brutus who managed to escape the destruction of Troy. Which means that England is like a second Troy. Which means that it is a glorious empire with a manifest destiny just waiting around the corner.

But you wouldn’t be able to guess that from the end of this play.

FYI, the ending of Leir’s story in both Monmouth and the play are nowhere near as bleak as Shakespeare’s ending.

A few more things we mentioned on the show and that you will want to check out:

Watch the full version of King Lear Daniel J. Rowe mentioned staring Darth Vader. I mean James Earl Jones. It’s free. Really. And you won’t be tested on it.

Make an effort and be sure to check out Stephanie’s show Monstrosities running until March 23, 2013.

Crap. At the end and I didn’t get to the weather. That calls for a special post, right?

So, stay tuned for that, as well as act IV of King Lear and my review of Kurosawa’s Ran, coming up in the next week!

(Podcast recorded and edited by Daniel J. Rowe, Show notes by Eric Jean, music by Jack Konorska)

Stay in touch, brawlers!

Follow @TheBardBrawl on Twitter.

Like our Facebook page.

Email the Bard Brawl at bardbrawl@gmail.com

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes

March 21, 2013 3

BB: King Lear, Act II

Artwork – Leigh MacRae

Listen to or download the podcast. (Thank you to Jack Konorska for the intro music.)

Welcome Brawlers to act II of the absolutely awesome King Lear!

When we stopped at the end of act I, a whole whack of crazy stuff had already happened.

King Lear had disowned his daughter Cordelia and divided his kingdom between his two other daughters. He’d also banished his most trusted advisor, Kent – so trusted in fact that he comes back to Lear in disguise to continue to serve his king. Lear tried staying with Goneril but she wouldn’t let his friends sleep over so he picked up and left, hoping Regan would be okay with he and his buddies hanging around for a bit. We also saw how Gloucester’s bastard son, Edmund, had managed to implicate his older bother Edgar in a fictitious plot to kill their father. (If you missed it, you’ll want to go back and read up on act I.)

Well, that’s nothing compared to what’s just over the horizon by the time we get to the end of act II.

In act II, scene 1 we spy Edmond in his father Gloucester’s castle. He has just been told the news that his father is going to be at the caste that night. He sees a perfect opportunity to further implicate Edgar in this made-up conspiracy. Edmund convinces Edgar to flee and Edmund pretends to be trying to stop him. He even cuts his own arm to make his attempted arrest more convincing. After Edgar flees, Gloucester arrives and Edmond paints a not-so-pretty picture of his Edgar tried to convince him to join in the conspiracy and that they fought when Edmund refused. Gloucester promises to give Edmund all of his lands if he hunts down Edgar. Cornwall and Regan arrive (apparently they’re staying at Gloucester’s castle now) and Gloucester whines to them about his recent troubles with his son. They don’t seem too interested; they’re trying to figure out how to manage dad.

Kent was sent on ahead to Gloucester’s castle in act I, scene 5 and in act II, scene 2 Kent arrives at the gates and runs into Oswald. Kent seems to know that Oswald is nothing more than the two daughters’ glorified lackey and tells him what he thinks of him in his typical well-considered and reasoned way:

A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a
base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,
hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a
lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson,
glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue;
one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a
bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but
the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar,
and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I
will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest
the least syllable of thy addition.

(Translation: “Oswald, you are a worthless sack of s__t!”)

Kent draws his sword and threatens to kill Oswald who yells out for help. Edmond, Cornwall, Regan and Gloucester show up and find a still-defiant Kent. They exchange a few words – which Cornwall and Regan clearly do not appreciate – and Kent is placed in the stocks. Gloucester protests but no one’s really been listening to him since the beginning of the play anyhow so why would anyone care now?

Scene 3 is actually just a soliloquy, the first spoken by Edgar. Whether he knows yet that he has been set up or not, he knows he’s a dead man if anybody finds him. So, in true Shakespearean fashion he decides to don a disguise. He decides to play Tom o’Bedlam which is actually less of a real character and more of a character type. The name Tom o’Bedlam refers to a rather famous ‘hospital’ in London, founded in the 13th century: the Bethlem Royal Hospital. essentially, he’s playing an escaped mental patient who thinks he is being pursued by the devil.

Small detail: King Lear is set several centuries prior to the foundation of Bedlam. Oh well. Shakespeare never was one for being slowed down by fact-checking. (Best example: the infamous sea-shores of Bohemia in The Winter’s Tale.)

The final scene of act II is a lengthy one which starts with Lear arriving at Gloucester’s castle and ends with him banished into the wilderness. When he arrives he first finds his messenger Kent (in disguise) locked in the stocks. Of course, he’s pissed that his messenger was treated this way but powerless to do anything about it. Gloucester meets with him outside the caster and tells them that Regan and Cornwall are sick and won’t meet with him. Sound familiar?

Gloucester does manage to return with them in tow. He’s happy to see her but that quickly changes when she sides with Goneril. In fact, she tries to send him back but Goneril herself shows up. He pleads with them and after a little back and forth they both agree: “why do you even need a single follower when our entire household stands ready to serve you, dad?” They mutually agree to take him in only if he comes alone, without his buddies.

I have to admit, in some ways, that doesn’t sound unreasonable. Too bad they then order their servants not to invite Lear to stay. Cornwall gives the order to lock the doors. Of course, throughout the scene there’s plenty more of the Fool’s “I told you so, nuncle” wisdom.

King Lear is all very Game of Thrones. Or so Daniel, Zoey, Stephanie, Jay and just about anybody else over the age of 12 with access to the internet or TV has told me.

I do know that Sean Bean dies in season 1. I would apologize for ruining it but I’m sure any one of these memes has beat me to it.

I also know you can buy a replica of the throne itself for the modest sum of $30 000… plus a negligible shipping fee of $1 800 dollars. Why is it so expensive? Because it’s made with real fiber-glass resin. Or, you could choose to buy any one of several of these 1967 Ford Mustangs for the same price. They’re made of metal.

Bard Brawl consensus is that Game of Thrones has more boobs, shlongs, dongs and dragons than Lear but, a comparable amount of heartless treachery and back-stabbing.

Not so fast! King Lear has already told us that he’s a dragon, right? “Peace Kent / Come not between the dragon and his wrath.” (I’m totally going to write that in my thesis for big bonus points!) That’s at least one.

And when the Bard Brawl finally convinces to get HBO to do a complete works of William Shakespeare à la BBC Television Shakespeare, I’m sure that we can slip in more than enough dongs and boobs to keep everyone happy. Edmund does woo both Goneril and Regan. Knowing Edmund, I’m sure they haven’t just been talking on the phone all night and holding hands when they go to the movies. If nothing else, Cordelia must sleep with the King of France on their wedding night.

I’m sure they’ll return our emails any day now!

Join us next week when we will see crazy Lear conducts the weather, a disappearing fool who seems to be friends with Merlin for some reason, Edgar trying way hard to out-crazy Lear, and poor clueless Gloucester who gets it worse than Sean Bean in any of these death scenes.

And if I can find the time, we’ll talk about the planets, the stars and the weather.

Sonnet 28 read by Erin Marie Byrnes.

(Podcast recorded and edited by Daniel J. Rowe, Show notes by Eric Jean)

Stay in touch, brawlers!

Follow @TheBardBrawl on Twitter.

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Email the Bard Brawl at bardbrawl@gmail.com

March 14, 2013 1

BB: King Lear, Act I

Artwork – Leigh MacRae

Listen to or download the podcast.

Welcome Brawlers to the Bard Brawl’s recording of the first act of this, our fifth play.

And what a play it is! This is no Taming of the Shrew or Henry VI, part 1, scrappy dramatic undercards who hang in there on pure grit and desire despite their faulty technique and poor conditioning.

No. This is the main event, ladies and gentlemen.

Along with such plays as Hamlet, Julius Caesar and Othello, this one is a serious contender to the title of best play ever written, folks.

Get ready for King Lear!

Without further ado, then, let’s ring the bell!

The play opens in act I, scene 1 with Gloucester and Kent – two nobles of Lear’s court – talking about Kent’s son Edmond. There’s a lot of wordplay centering on the fact that Edmond is Gloucester’s bastard son (and no one seems to care that he’s standing right there listening to the whole thing). More importantly, we learn that King Lear’s about to do something completely nuts: he’s going to abdicate the throne, turn over the lands to his daughters and ‘retire’ with a hundred knights, which the daughters will be responsible for upkeeping. This is already a little sketchy but here’s the really crazy part: he decides to give the biggest or best portion of his kingdom to the daughter who loves him most. And so he has them take part in a ‘sucking-up-to-dad’ competition. Goneril and Regan jump right into it but Lear’s youngest daughter Cordelia refuses to play the game. Despite being Lear’s favourite, the old man misinterprets her silence as ingratitude and decides to deny her any land at all. He redistributes that portion between his two other daughter. Kent, his most loyal retainer, tries to reason with him but he is banished for his honesty in a fit of range in which lear speaks on of the most famous line of the play: “Peace, Kent! / Come not between the dragon and his wrath.” (Sends shivers down my spine, that line. We should all start using it in daily speech. Just saying.) After Kent is banished, Lear calls in Cordelia’s suitors, the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France. After they learn that Cordelia has been stripped of her dowry (a third of Lear’s lands), Burgundy rejects her. The King of france, however, recognises the value of her honesty and agrees to marry her. Whew – it’s on!

Actually, does this remind you of anything a little more recent, too?

As the first and legitimate son, his brother Edgar is in line to inherent all of Gloucester<s lands and titles. Of course, Edmund is not about to just take that lying down and t the start of scene 2, we surprise Edmond musing to himself and plotting to get his brother out of the picture. The world think’s a bastard is a bastard? Well, then he’ll show them a bastard they won’t soon forget. He forges a letter which is supposed to be written by Edgar and which discusses a plot for the two brothers to team up and kill dad. Then, the letter adds, when dad’s out of the picture and Edgar inherits everything, he’ll cut Edmund in for half. He fakes hiding the letter which just makes it irresistible to Gloucester who buys into the whole thing. Part two of the plan involves getting rid of Edgar so he can<t go to dad and say his jerk of a bastard brother made the whole thing up. So, Edmund takes Edgar aside and makes up some story that their father wants him dead because he suspects that Edgar is trying to kill him. Edmund tells him to run the hell away and that he’ll try to dead with Gloucester for him. Edgar runs off.

See how all this talk of bastards and inheritance is mirrored in the two main plotlines? Shakespeare gets to be really good at this stuff by this point in his career. Moving right along.

Act I, scene 3 is short but vital. Lear mentioned earlier that not only would he have a hundred knights in his entourage at all times but that he would split his time living with each of his daughters in turn. However, when Goneril hears that Lear has apparently hit her servant, she decides that she’s had enough of Lear and his rowdy knights. When she hears that they are making their way to her castle, she instructs her servant Oswald to be negligent in serving Lear. this way, she can trick Lear into giving her justification for reducing the number of his entourage. Lot of clever people in this play.

Despite being banished by Lear earlier, it’s clear from the start of scene 4 that he has no intention of abandoning the old king now. He disguises himself and offers his services to Lear who accepts. Oswald arrives and informs lear that Goneril and her husband Albany will not be greeting him because they are sick. One of Lear’s knights points out that they’ve totally been dissed. Lear hits Oswald who takes issue with that but Kent steps in and shows Oswald out of Lear’s presence. Lear calls his fool to him and as soon as he arrives on the scene, the fool lays into Lear. All of his arguments basically come down to this: “You crazy old coot! By splitting your crown and kingdom into pieces, you’ve left yourself with nothing. Even I’m better off than you are because while you’re not a king anymore I’m still a fool.” Something like that. After quite of bit of this between Lear, Kent and the fool, Goneril shows up and she’s pissed. She asks Lear to reign in his entourage and to wisen up. He of course refuses and gets insulted, but of course there’s nothing he can do about it now. She tells him he;ll have to downsize his entourage to fifty knights. Not happy at all about any of this, he says ‘the hell with this’ and decides to go see Regan who he hopes will treat him with a bit more respect. Goneril, however, has already sent off a letter to her sister and they’ve both agreed that they’ve had enough of their father and his buddies watching the Habs game and getting drunk on their dollar. I think we can see where this is going.

In the final scene of the act, Lear sends Kent to Gloucester with a letter explaining what has happened at Goneril’s and telling him to expect Lear shortly. (Seems that Regan and her husband Cornwall are staying at Gloucester’s castle at the moment.) The rest of the scene is an exchange between Lear and his fool. While Lear hopes that Regan will give him a warmer welcome, the fool predicts that she’ll be just like Goneril. Then, for a brief moment, Lear seems to realize how much he has wronged Cordelia when he stripped her of her share of his lands and banished her to France. The fool interrupts him and rubs a little salt in the wound by reminding Lear that it was a really dumb move to give up his house as now he has to live at the mercy of merciless daughters.

We’ll get into the succulent barbecued meat of King Lear in our next post but in the mean time, as always, here’s a list of some of the main characters appearing in King Lear:

King Lear: The aging King of England. He has no sons so decides instead to retire and split the kingdom between his three daughters.
Goneril: Lear’s eldest daughter. She is married to the Duke of Albany.
Albany: Goneril’s husband. A bit of a pushover with a good heart. Nowhere near the ruthlessness of Cornwall.
Regan: Lear’s second daughter and arguably the meanest of the bunch. She is married to the Duke of Cornwall.
Cornwall: Regan’s husband. Like her, he’s a ruthless and sadistic.
Cordelia: Lear’s youngest daughter. While she loves him the most, she is disowned by her father because she refuses to indulge in flattering him.
Kent: One of Lear’s oldest and most loyal advisors, he continues to serve Lear in disguise after he is banished. Stephanie points out in the show that Kent’s kind of like a Mr. Carson from Downton Abbey. You know, this guy –
Fool: This is Lear’s fool or court jester. One of Shakespeare’s best fools.
Oswald: A servant to Goneril and Regan.
Gloucester: A nobleman of Lear’s court, and the father of Edgar and Edmund. While loyal to Lear, he’s unable to help him and pays a high price for trying to do so.
Edgar: Gloucester’s legitimate son who is being framed by Edmund. He is loyal to his father and like Kent with Lear, he disguises himself to stay near Gloucester.
Edmund: Gloucester’s bastard son. He plots to overthrow his father and eventually tries to play the two sisters against each other in the hopes of being king.

You might have noticed that a crap ton of stuff happens in this act? Well, get used to that pace because the intensity’s about to get ramped way up for act II.

Check out Jessica Winter’s article on Lear for Slate Magazine that was mentioned in the podcast.

Bonus sonnet 19 read by Kayla Cross.

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March 7, 2013 3

King Lear (1987), Jean-Luc Godard (director)

Zoey Baldwin

An Attempt to Wade Through Jean-Luc Godard’s King Lear

Before watching Jean-Luc Godard’s King Lear, I was a bit wary of the film’s length. How on earth did Godard manage to condense Shakespeare’s seventh-longest play into 90 minutes?

In short: he didn’t. Godard’s 1987 adaptation hardly resembles the Bard’s original work. But I don’t think that was the director’s intention. French cinema’s most revered, revolutionary (and occasionally reviled) filmmaker turned a tragic piece of theatre into an exploration of art as a whole. Which works in theory, but in execution is dense and bewildering.

Godard’s rendition is set in a post-Chernobyl world. All traces of art have been destroyed. Peter Sellars (not to be confused with the Peter Sellers of Dr. Strangelove fame) plays William Shakesper Junior the Fifth, a Bard descendant who has been charged with restoring the work of his ancestor. (Yes, the spelling of Shakespeare is off, but I looked it up on IMDb and apparently this is what the director intended.)

In a parallel and occasionally overlapping storyline, a woman named Cordelia (Molly Ringwald) and her father, a Russian mobster named Mr. Learo (Norman Mailer) are at a coastal resort. Shakesper appears to be in and out of the same resort, and Cordelia’s relationship with her father inspires him. Shakesper borrows words from their conversations (which he creeps on in cafés) to craft the lines in his restored King Lear. After a while, however, we are not sure whether Cordelia exists, or if Shakesper has invented her.

He sums up Cordelia’s relationship with her father in a way that mirrors my own confusion about the film: “Obviously this man was power. Obviously this girl was virtue. They’re fighting. I don’t know what the issue is.”\

Most of what has been preserved of Shakespeare’s Lear exists in the film in the form of voiceover. Many lines are uttered in the film, sometimes simultaneously, often behind unmatching images. Lear’s “You must bear with me, I am old and foolish” (Act IV, sc. vii) and the fool’s “Have more than thou showest, / Speak less than thou knowest, / Lend less than thou owest, / Ride more than thou goest, / Learn more than thou trowest, / Set less than thou throwest” (Act I, sc. iv) make eerie appearances. The words are often presented in an ominous fashion, whispering behind images of flickering candles and medieval paintings of angels.

Another aspect of the film that must be addressed is the narrative device of tableaus. Occasionally, words will flash across the screen: “King Lear : A Study,” “3 Journeys into King Lear,” “King Lear: Fear and Loathing,” “Nothing” and “No Thing” are a few that we see. These devices are used to mimic the human thought process of rediscovery, perhaps.

The idea of “nothing” and silence is a major concept throughout the film. At the beginning of Shakespeare’s King Lear, the king is old and has decided to divide up his kingdom amongst his three daughters. He will give the largest portion of the kingdom to the daughter who most convincingly swears her love. Goneril and Regan sing their father’s praises, but Cordelia, the youngest daughter, says nothing. The Godard film focuses largely on this notion.

The Shakesper character sums up the weight of Cordelia’s refusal to suck up to her father quite nicely. He describes her silence as “a violent silence”: “But Cordelia is not mute. It’s not that she hasn’t said anything. She has said nothing. No thing. Everything that conspires and organizes itself around her silence, that wants to silence her silence, this produces violence.”

There is also a segment of the movie (which is not in any kind of logical order) where Shakesper journeys into the woods and meets a man named Edgar (Leos Carax), another Lear character, sitting by the water. Edgar and his girlfriend Virginia (Julie Delpy) aid Shakesper on his path to discovery. It seems like these two people are meant to represent the simple minds we would all have if no art existed in the world.

Art makes us think and explore levels of reality. I feel like Godard is trying to make his audiences see the value of interpreting art in your own way and not just swallowing one artist’s vision.

But talk about avant-garde—yikes.

Godard’s King Lear is not suited for impatient viewers. I spent most of the 90 minutes scratching my head and struggling with the overwhelming cacophony of sound. The entirety of the film is punctuated by the sound of screeching seagulls, car horns and violent string music. This is only addressed at one moment, where Shakesper happens upon a crazy professor, played by Godard himself, and asks: “There’s a lot of noise around here, huh? What’s it for? What’s it all for, professor? Please!”

In case you hadn’t guessed, the professor never answers. Godard never tells us what any of it is for.

And, of course, like any deep film, King Lear closes with Woody Allen as a character named Dr. Alien, who edits all of Shakesper’s film that materialized out of nowhere on the ground in the woods a few minutes earlier.

Oh, and SPOILER ALERT, Cordelia dies.

There’s a repeated shot of her splayed out like Jesus on the beach in a white gown. Her father sits holding a large stick and looking out over the ocean.

“King Lear: a cLEARing” flashes across the screen. A seagull squawks in an attempt to pierce my eardrums.

Shakespeare would have been proud…?

Zoey Baldwin is an unabashed grammar nazi, procrastibaker and television addict. She attended Shakespeare camp for five summers in her native California because she is allergic to mosquitoes. She’s in her last semester of the journalism graduate diploma program at Concordia University.

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Artwork – Leigh MacRae

March 3, 2013 3

Richard III (1955), Laurence Olivier (director)

Daniel J. Rowe

Though in a certain sense dated, Olivier’s Richard III is a great piece of film largely thanks to the director/star’s scene chewing greatness.

—

When looking at William Shakespeare’s work on film, one will, in a very short time, collide with “cinema’s first great Shakespearean artist“, the godfather of them all, Sir Laurence Olivier.

Richard III is the final of his three directorial efforts (he acted in eight); the other two being Hamlet (1948) and Henry V (1944). He began what Orson Welles and Kenneth Branagh continued. Branagh, like Olivier, started his bard-on-film odyssey with Henry V. Sir Kenneth followed that promise by bumbling through roles he had no business playing (Hamlet, Iago), and hasn’t done much for a while. Here’s hoping he doesn’t decide to cast himself as R III.

Olivier’s Richard III suffers from one thing: age. It is hard for a contemporary viewer to appreciate the film when Richard Loncraine’s 1995 adaptation is staring us in the face. Sir Ian McKellen’s Richard is just so sexy. The ascetic of Olivier’s R III suffers datedness in three respects: costumes, set and music. Oh the music. So bad.

By the way, are we a little fast and loose with the knighthoods Windsors? I guess all it takes is making a few Shakespeare movies and you’re in.

The “it’s dated” criticism, even with the billowy tights and static sets, misses the forest for the trees however (ask Macbeth the consequences of that). Richard III is always about the title character. If Richard is good, so goes the production. Olivier is, surprise, surprise, very good. He bounces through his manipulation of the Yorkish court with the cheshire cat grin of a true sadist. He loves what he’s doing, and dreads it in the same scene at times. His soliloques to camera are chilling, as are his “friendly” moments with his nephews. Olivier, as per normal, chews up the scenery.

His directorial choices, as well, work. He splits speeches and changes the order or scenes to make the very confusing plot of the play make a little more sense. He opens with the court, so we can at least see the characters of Richard’s opening soliloquy. Of course the opening, “Now is the winter of our discontent,” loses a little power if not performed loud and proud on fade in.

The use of shadows is a little obvious. Yes we get it, Richard is a shadowy figure whose only pleasure is to “spy my shadow in the sun and descant on mine own deformity.” The director’s choice is understandable, as is the Edward court brightly lit, Richard court gloomy lit decision.

A particularly good scene is Richard’s coronation. Lady Anne (Claire Bloom) plays torture victim off Richard’s Machiavel creating a gut wrenching balance of hell that is the last York king’s court. The murder of Clarence (Sir John Gielgud) is harsh, hard to watch and perfect in its callousness. Gielgud, another knight, it should be noted, was called the greatest Shakespearean actor of the 20th century; he was in Branagh’s Hamlet and died in 2000. He directed his own version of Hamlet in 1964.

The historical Richard III has recently found his way into the headlines with the discovery of a skeleton thought to be his under a carpark. His historical footprint has been as much outlined by Shakespeare as any scholar, and thus the play remains important.

Olivier’s Richard III is worth the watch. Richard ranks with Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear and Othello as Shakespeare’s finest and most difficult characters. Any bard brawler must appreciate the role, and catch a master knee deep in the guck. Olivier is a master.

Note to Queen Elizabeth II: We bard brawlers are part of the commonwealth and waiting for our knighthoods.

Daniel J. Rowe is c0-creator of the Bard Brawl.

January 1, 2013 0

BB: Coriolanus, the Speeches

Like Caius Marius Coriolanus standing before Rome, we’ve reached the end of our exile’s path and we must now make our choice: which of Coriolanus‘ speeches are worthy of our podcast?

Welcome to the speeches podcast for Coriolanus!

Listen to the podcast here.

The more popular Julius Caesar is a parade of speeches delivered by master orators. Coriolanus though is a much messier play where dialogue, not monologue, is the norm. That makes it hard to decide where a selection should start and stop which means that I’m sure your favourites were unceremoniously sacrificed or cut short in the making of the show. But fear not! They’re still hale and whole in our five last Coriolanus podcasts. Subscribe on iTunes or download them from this blog to find out what you’ve missed!

“Hail, noble Marcius!” Act I, Scene 1 lns. 173-215
Speakers: Meneniuns, Caius Martius (Coriolanus), Second Citizen
Caius Martius barges in on this scene of civil unrest. While Menenius has been trying to appease the crowd, Martius tells them that he’d rather kill the lot of them than negotiate with them. He also suggests that while the people are quick to assume the food shortage is artificial – that the nobles are hoarding food at their expense – Coriolanus suggests that the people of Rome have done nothing to merit a dole of grain but take to the streets in protest when they should be out fighting Rome’s enemies. Are we swayed by Martius’ argument or does the play’s initial sympathy for the common people make Martius into a despot?

“How many stand for consulships?” Act II, Scene 2 lns. 1-36
Speakers: First Officer, Second Officer
Two officers, sent ahead to the Capitol to put cushions on the patricians’ seats, are speaking about Coriolanus’ nomination to the post of consul. This exchange, and others like it, are central to Coriolanus. The play is not so much about portraying Coriolanus’ actions for their own sake but rather it is about how we should interpret those actions, about the place of Coriolanus’ name in history. Is Coriolanus a victim of history, or of his pride? Should he be reviled as a tyrant or is he a hero of the Roman Republic? Is he the ultimate Stoic or a brat?

“We do it not alone, sir.” Act II, Scene 1 lns. 32-49
Speakers: Brutus, Menenius, Sicinius
This one of many exchanges where the tribunes have at it with the patrician Menenius. Menenius reminds the tribunes of their insignificance and takes them for self-serving and petty politicians. They remind Menenius that he’s got a reputation for drinking. However, Menenius sees nothing wrong with a good drink in its proper time and place. This offers an interesting contrast between two political philosophies: Menenius as the old order, the tribunes as the new. Can we tell where Shakespeare’s sympathies lie?

“It is a mind that shall remain a poison…” Act III, Scene 1 lns. 115-145
Speakers: Sicinius, Coriolanus, Cominius
Coriolanus has so many amazing lines, particularly in act III, but this is one of my favourites. Coriolanus is clearly interested in mocking and abasing the common people, but is he wrong in what he says? It seems to me that he makes a valid point: when two parties struggle for leadership, it weakens the states to outside threats. What is particularly interesting in this passage is that his remarks are addressed as much to the patricians as to the plebeians. While he describes the tribunes as the leader of a school of tiny fish and as two of the heads of the fire-breathing Hydra, he’s also quick to point out that in some ways the patricians are no better. Either they have no real authority – and should stop pretending – or they should flex their muscles and stop giving in to the tribunes’ demands.

“All places yield to him ere he sits down…” Act IV, Scene 7 lns. 30-61
Speaker: Tullus Aufidius
Menenius and Aufidius are possibly the two individuals who have the clearest understanding of Coriolanus’ character, of his strengths and weaknesses. In this speech, Aufidius paints a portrait of a Coriolanus seemingly able to conquer through force of will and presence. But even as he praises Coriolanus the soldier, he identifies the tragedy of Coriolanus’ story: so long as he can wage war, his greatness is uncontested but his inability to adapt his behaviour to new situations – to peace – mean that his greatness will be eclipsed by his own insistence on his greatness.

“Nay, go not from us thus.” Act V, Scene 3 lns. 152-212
Speakers: Volumnia, Coriolanus
Volumnia, Valeria, Virgilia and Young Martius stand before Coriolanus and beg him to spare Rome. Coriolanus makes to leave but his mother calls him back. In a last-ditch effort to sway him, they kneel in front of him. They make a show of being resigned to die with their neighbours in the his pending attack. Volumnia then suggests that Coriolanus is a bastard Volscian and as he is finally moved to make peace between the Volsces and Rome. In the end, does Volumnia move him to compassion or – as his mother suggests – is his renouncing his war on Rome just another selfish act to preserve the integrity of his name to history?

Let us know what you think!

Next week, prepare for our first ever sonnets podcast. Daniel and I will discuss Shakespeare’s sonnets 1 through 5, read each week by our wonderful sonneteers. You won’t want to miss it!

bardbrawlthespeeches — Artwork – Stephanie E.M. Coleman

(Podcast recorded and edited by Daniel J. Rowe, Show notes by Eric Jean)

October 2, 2012 3

BB: Coriolanus, Act V

“Mine eyes do sweat compassion,” Coriolanus, Act V, iii

The perfect line for all those who cry at inappropriate times. Sadly, just as perfect for those highly appropriate times like the funeral of your beloved’s grandfather.

We’ll miss you Zaida Harry.

Welcome all to the final act of Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Coriolanus.

Listen to the podcast here.

The last act ended one a conspiratory note where we overheard Tullus Aufidius and one of his lieutenants plotting Coriolanus’ downfall. However, in act V, scene I, we leave Aufidius to his scheming and turn our attention back to Rome. Cominius returns from his visit to the Volscian camp where he has pleaded with Coriolanus to lay down his arms and not strike against Rome. He gives the gathered tribunes and patricians a play by play of his petition but his mission is a failure: Coriolanus will not cease his hostile actions against Rome. Furthermore, he appears to have broken all of his bonds of affection with Rome and its citizens. He has become a relentless juggernaut of war. With few options available to them, the Romans convince Menenius – Coriolanus’ closet friend – to journey to the Volscian camp and see if he can leverage their friendship into compassion for Rome.

When Menenius arrives at the Volscian camp in scene 2, he is initially denied access to Coriolanus by the sentinels standing guard outside the camp. (Curiously enough, these are also identified as Senators in our online edition.) They say that Coriolanus has no interest in speaking with anyone from Rome. Menenius argues with them that Coriolanus will want to hear from him given their long friendship but they only respond that he should hate Rome, as Coriolanus does, because they banished its greatest warrior. Aufidius and Coriolanus arrive on the scene, drawn by the sound of the argument at the gates. Menenius tries to plead his case but Coriolanus tells him that he has cut all ties with Rome and won’t hear another word. He does, however, hand him a letter before sending him on his way.

After Cominius and Menenius’ failure to talk Coriolanus out of taking his vengeance on Rome, the desperate Romans go to their backup plan and send in the women: Coriolanus’ mother Volumnia, his wife Virgilia, his son (young) Martius, and Valeria, a friend of the family. Coriolanus has just sworn not to listen to any more petitions from Rome when they three women and the boy Martius are lead into the camp at the start of scene 3. Coriolanus swears to act “As if a man were author of himself,” as if his family was of no significance to him and he exists in the world unfettered by relationships. At first, he stands his ground but when the women kneel and Volumnia pleads with him he finds himself unable to remain unmoved. He agrees to broker a peace between the Volscians and the Romans but in convincing him to stand down, Coriolanus believes his mother has doomed him.

In scenes 4 and 5, the Romans receive the good news that they won’t be crushed beneath Coriolanus’ war machine thanks to the pleas of the three women. It seems Menenius is mistaken and that Coriolanus does, in fact, have “more mercy / in him than there is milk in a male tiger.” The news arrives just in time because the angry plebeians have captured the tribune Junius Brutus and are threatening to kill him slowly for having banished Coriolanus. As the people welcome the women home, they repeal his banishment.

Coriolanus, however, is not returning home in scene 6. As he has sworn to serve as a soldier to the Volscian cause, he returns to Antium to continue his service as well as to deliver the final terms of the peace treaty he has negotiated on behalf of the Volsces. Before he arrives, Tullus Aufidius has prepared a letter for the Volscian in which he accuses Coriolanus of being a traitor to the Volscian cause. Aufidius is worried that if he allows Coriolanus to address the people he will be able to sway them from sentencing him to death and se he decides to strike Coriolanus before he can give an account of his actions. Coriolanus presents the lords of Antium with the treaty but Aufidius tells them not to read it. He and his men fall upon Coriolanus and kill him. In the aftermath, Aufidius tells them that he just saved them from danger by killing Coriolanus. Moments later, he orders his body to be carried out and buried with honours.

The final act of Coriolanus seems like a bit of a letdown in the end. The tension builds in the first few scenes until at last the women talk him out of waging war and return to the city to great acclaim. The final scene in particular is very disappointing. Coriolanus returns to the city and before he can do anything, he’s once again accused of treason. He’s unceremoniously murdered by Aufidius and his lackeys and then, in the same breath, his body is carried off-stage and the play ends. This is actually an interesting trend we’ve noticed while reading our way through Shakespeare’s plays. A lot of them are really rockin’ through the first four-and-a-half acts but then they wrap up awkwardly or suddenly in a way that’s really unsatisfying or downright confusing. Either Shakespeare wasn’t good with endings or there’s something we haven’t quite understood about what made for a good ending in the late 16th century.

For instance, the short speech which caps this play, in which Aufidius claims to regret his actions, seems totally disingenuous. Is that intentional on Shakespeare’s part? While we’ve seen all of Aufidius’ plotting behind the scenes and have every reason to distrust his words, the lords of Antium have not. It’s likely he’s not saying these words for our benefit but for that of the Volscian lords in attendance. That would paint him as a sort of ‘Noble Brutus’ – the one who kills Julius Caesar because he believes him to be a tyrant, not the tribune Brutus in Coriolanus – who kills Coriolanus to avoid a greater danger to the Volsces.

It’s also interesting that Shakespeare ends the play here because in Plutarch, we learn that after Coriolanus’ death some of the Volsces’ other enemies saw their chance to attack them and picked them to pieces. Tullus Aufidius is eventually killed and the Volsces never recover. They’re eventually conquered by the Romans, making Coriolanus’ death one of the factors in the Roman Republic’s early expansion. Still, does Coriolanus in fact “have a noble memory”? Not so sure.

In our next podcast, we’ll be revisiting some of our favourite speeches from Coriolanus. If you have any passages you’d like us to discuss, please leave us a comment!

Also, don’t forget to check in on some of our Brawlers:

Check out David Wheaton‘s band page, and go to his show when in your town.

Jay Reid’s film page can be viewed here, and a trailer for his new film here.

295000_10150720827017885_2117795638_n — Newest Bard Brawler Laura Pellicer reads Sonnet 6

(Podcast recorded and edited by Daniel J. Rowe, Show notes by Eric Jean)

September 25, 2012 4

BB: Coriolanus, Act IV

In our tenth episode, we return to our regularly scheduled program with act IV of Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Coriolanus.

Listen to the podcast here.

Act III ends with Coriolanus turning his back on Rome. In act IV, scene 1 he takes his leave of his friends and family. Coriolanus predicts that the people of Rome will miss him when he’s gone and Rome is once again threatened. Of course, he doesn’t say that he’ll be the one to lead the troops to its doors!

Act IV, scene 2 is another short scene. The tribunes of the people, having successfully banished Coriolanus from Rome, dismiss their mob. They spot Volumnia and Menenius and try to avoid them but Coriolanus’ mother makes straight for them and gives them a piece of her mind before they beat a hasty retreat.

The next scene recaps some of the information we already know: Coriolanus has been banished from Rome and the divided people of Rome are ripe for the picking. Is this for the benefit of some of the people in the audience who maybe haven’t been paying attention? Or is this just Shakespeare’s way of explaining how the Volsces know what’s going on in Rome?

Coriolanus’ wanderings have led him through the gates of Antium, right to Tullus Aufidius’ house. In act IV, scene 4, he approaches in disguise and in act IV, scene 5 makes his presence known to the servants of the household. Thinking he’ some vagrant, they refuse him access to the house. After beating one of the servants, Aufidus comes to investigate. He doesn’t recognize Coriolanus at first, who slowly reveals his face to Aufidius. Throughout the scene Tullus Aufidius keeps asking him for his name until at last Coriolanus identifies himself as the conqueror of Corioles. He explains how he has been betrayed by his city and offers up either his life or his service to Tullus Aufidius. Tullus Aufidius welcomes him with open arms and offers him half of his forces to exact his revenge and crush Rome beneath his boot for the Volsces. In one of the few funny moments of the play, Aufidius’ servants suddenly all claim to have known that Coriolanus was not some bum but a noble person.

We return to Rome for scene 6. Brutus and Sicinius are busy gloating to Menenius about how much betters things are now that Coriolanus is gone. However, while they are vaunting the great peace Coriolanus’ exile has brought to Rome, messengers arrive with some grim news: Coriolanus and Tullus Aufidius have joined forces and are heading for Rome. Ooops. Menenius and Cominius make it clear that this is all the tribunes’ fault but the tribunes try to quiet the people by suggesting that this is something the patricians have made up. The tribunes follow the patricians to the Capitol to confirm the news.

Act IV ends with a short scene involving Tullus Aufidius and one of his lieutenants. Seems that Coriolanus is more popular with the troops than Aufidius anticipated. The Lieutenant suggests that if Aufidius doesn’t do something soon, he’ll be eclipsed by Coriolanus’ legend. Aufidius realizes that he can’t do anything yet or they might not succeed in the campaign against Rome but hints that Coriolanus’ pride will give him the leverage he needs to get rid of him once their war is done.

One of the most interesting scenes in this act is the initial encounter between Coriolanus and Tullus Aufidius. As I mentioned above, when Coriolanus first arrives at Tullus Aufidius’ doorstep, Aufidius does not recognize him. He asks him several times to name himself but Coriolanus appears to say nothing at first. When he is not recognized, he starts dropping hints, suggesting that his name is “unmusical to the Volscians’ ears, / And harsh in sound to thine.” Aufidius doesn’t get the hint and while he seems to recognize some noble quality in Coriolanus, he asks him again for his name. Coriolanus again delays and tells him to “Prepare thy brow to frown.” He still doesn’t recognize him and at last Coriolanus reveals himself in a lengthy speech in which he reveals his entire recent history and his desire for vengeance. But why play this revelation game at all?

Coriolanus is the name he was given after he (almost) single-handedly conquered Corioles. Cominius will later, in the epic act V, describe how Coriolanus refuses to answer to ‘Coriolanus.’ After all, how can he still consider himself Coriolanus when he’s now fighting on the same side as the people who, not too long ago, he conquered? For Coriolanus, names represent action, and his past actions are his identity. When he’s exiled from Rome, his name ‘Coriolanus’ loses its meaning and by extension, so does the man called ‘Coriolanus:’ he becomes “a kind of nothing, titleless” who refuses all names. Coriolanus’ logic is simple but brutal: what is left for this juggernaut of war when his titles and history have been rendered obsolete, or when he has been displaced by ungrateful politicians? To forge himself a new name in the ashes of Rome.

As always, we’re looking forward your comments!

Welcoming Virginie Tremblay to our sonnet readers this podcast. Enjoy number 4

Also, you should visit Stephanie’s website here to see some of her awesome art!

(Podcast recorded and edited by Daniel J. Rowe, Show notes by Eric Jean)

September 18, 2012 1