The Shakespeare Code

 Brothers and Sisters of The Shakespeare Code……

Before you read Your Cat’s interview with Stewart Trotter…….

……it’s best to look at ‘The Original Ending to King Lear’ Parts One,  Two  and Three.

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The Agents of The Shakespeare Code have been examining William Shakespeare’s ORIGINAL ending to King Lear..

 As part of this research, the Code’s Chief Agent actually PLAYED the part of the King….

…..at the HIGHLY PRESTIGIOUS Titchfield Shakespeare Festival…..

….to find out how this ending works in performance.

Stewart is now back……

…..recovering…..

….. in The Code’s Headquarters in West London…..

…..where he finally consented to give…..

…..AN INTERVIEW TO YOUR CAT!!!

AND HERE IT IS…….

(Stewart is the Chief Agent, so this Interview is rather more verbatim than is Trixie’s wont…..)

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TRIXIE

So, Boss….

…..you don’t mind me calling you that, do you?

STEWART

Not at all, Trixie…..

TRIXIE

Tom ‘X’ and I LOVED your new ending to King Lear…..

…or should we say your OLD ending as it hasn’t been performed since 1608…..

Can you please explain to people who weren’t there what happens?

And how it differs from the ending that is normally played….

STEWART

Well, the BEGINNING of Lear’s last scene is exactly the same..

..It’s only at the end that it’s radically, gloriously different.

TRIXIE

Talk us through the whole scene….

STEWART

Offstage, Lear discovers a soldier is hanging his daughter, Cordelia, in her cell….

He kills him and cuts down Cordelia…. 

But it’s too late…..

In one of the most shocking moments in the whole of drama…….

…..Lear enters with Cordelia dead in his arms…..

TRIXIE

Not bad for an eighty year old!

What’s he on? Celtic spinach?

STEWART

Remember, Trixie, the King is ill…..

….with a disease called ‘The Mother’.

It’s his illness gives him supernatural strength….

TRIXIE

Of course! You mentioned that in your programme note!

(To read the note, Brothers and Sisters, please click: HERE!

To read more fully about Lear’s illness, please click: HERE!)

STEWART

Another symptom is suffocation in the chest…….

……. and choking in the  throat…..

That’s why, when Lear enters……

……..he commands the men on stage to…..

Howl, howl, howl, howl…..

This is because…..

……HE IS TOO ILL TO HOWL HIMSELF!!!

When  this command is met with shocked silence…….

…….he attacks the soldiers for being…....

…..men of stones…..

…..and adds….

Had I your tongues and eyes I’d use them so that

Heaven’s vault should crack…..

TRIXIE

So all those hammy old actors…….

….. who come on bawling their heads off…..

…… have got it wrong!

STEWART

You might say that, Trixie the Cat….

…..but I couldn’t possibly comment…..

TRIXIE

What happens next……

STEWART

Lear, trying to accept that his daughter is dead, says…..

I know when one is dead and when one lives…..

She’s dead as earth……

But as T.S. Eliot says in The Four Quartets…….

TRIXIE (showing off)

Humankind cannot bear very much reality…..

STEWART

Brava, Trixie the Cat!!!

Lear’s sick, old mind instantly rejects the truth…..

……and he asks the soldiers for a looking glass…….

TRIXIE

…..about the last thing a soldier would ever take into battle…..

STEWART

……to see if Cordelia’s breath will…..

……mist or stain the stone….

Instead he finds a feather…….

……in our production, part of Cordelia’s dress….

TRIXIE

Looks a bit like Ginger Rogers’ dress in Top Hat…..

STEWART

Trixie!

TRIXIE

Sorry, boss…

STEWART

Lear holds the feather to Cordelia’s mouth and cries…..

This feather stirs…..

But the feather only stirs because Lear’s own hands are shaking so much……

The loyal Earl of Kent…….

……..who has followed the King in disguise as his servant Caius….

…….tries to introduce himself…..

But Lear thinks he is one of the ‘murderers’ and ‘traitors’ who have plotted to kill Cordelia…

He then begs Cordelia to…..

…….stay a little….

…..and imagines she is talking to him…

But when no-one else can hear her, he explains….

Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low….

An excellent thing in woman…..

TRIXIE

Bet the feminists love that!

STEWART (ignoring Your Cat)

Lear then boasts to Cordelia that he has……

……killed the slave that was a hanging thee…..

……and immediately becomes a proud, young warrior king again….

I have seen the day with my good biting falchion [short sword]

I would have made them skip……

But then……

……in a moment of heart-breaking pathos…..

…….confesses……

I am old now, and these same crosses spoil me….

For a moment he recognises Kent……..

…..but cannot understand that Kent is the same man as his servant Caius…..

……a good fellow….

……who will…

……strike and quickly too….

Then he confuses Caius with Cordelia….

……and says….

He’s dead and rotten…

Lear then goes on to confuse the Fool with Cordelia as well…..

And my poor fool is hanged……

In his bewildered state, all the people he has loved……..

……..and who have loved him…….

……..are present in the dead body of his daughter.

Lear finally accepts that Cordelia has…..

…..no, no, no life….

……..then asks the great, unanswered……

……..and unanswerable……

……..question of the play…..

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life

And thou no breath at all?

In an act of SUPREME MORAL HONESTY…..

……Lear admits to himself that he will never see his daughter again….

Thou’llt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never…..

He then asks Kent to undo a button on his tunic……

And it’s at this crucial point that our version of Lear…..

…… and the one that’s usually played……

……. part company…..

TRIXIE

What happens in the usual version?

STEWART

The King suddenly reverts to his old delusion that Cordelia is alive……

……and believes he can see her lips moving….

Do you see this? Look on her! Look her lips,

Look there! look there.

He then dies……

Like the Earl of Gloucester, earlier in the play, Lear’s heart has….

…burst smilingly…..

TRIXIE

Now tell our Brothers and Sisters what happened at Titchfield!

STEWART

As Lear utters those hammer-blow words to his soul…..

 Never, never, never….

…..it provokes a final attack of The Mother…..

….which Shakespeare’s contemporaries believed was a fatal disease.

The King, suffocating and choking……

…..asks Kent to undo the button at his neck…..

He then gives a great cry of agony as he collapses on the body of Cordelia….

….indicated in the text by an extraordinary…..

O,o,o,o,o….

 

Edgar cries: 

He faints! My lord! My Lord’….

Then the King raises himself up and says….

Break heart, I prithee break…..

He has spent the whole of the play trying to CONQUER his illness….

When he sees his servant has been put in the stocks by his daughter and son-in-law…..

….. he cries out….

O how this Mother swells up towards my heart….

Historica passio, down thou climbing sorrow,

Thy element’s below….

Now, in the full, dreadful, knowledge that his daughter is dead……

HE LETS HIS ILLNESS CONQUER HIM!!!

He CONTROLS his destiny by SUBMITTING to it……

As he COURTEOUSLY ……

……but HEROICALLY……

…..IMPLORES HIS HEART TO BREAK…

It is a suicide which is NOT a suicide……

It follows the flow of the universe itself……

 At this point there was a knock at the door…

..It was Tom ‘X’….

 …..brandishing a print out….

TOM ‘X’

Thought you might like to read this, Chief….

It’s Ian Burleigh writing in The Portsmouth News….

STEWART

Tom! You know it’s very unprofessional to read reviews…..

….you might start to believe them!

As dashing Theatre Colossus, Sir Peter Hall……

…….once remarked to me….

…….when I was working as his ‘Assistant’ on productions at the National Theatre and Glyndebourne…..

Today’s review is tomorrow’s fish and chip paper….

…….except, of course, no-one wraps up fisn’n’chips in newspapers any more…

TOM ‘X’

But this is NOT like a review, Chief.

It’s more an appreciation…..

TRIXIE

Let Tom read it to you…

…..pleeeeeeeease Boss!!!

STEWART (reluctantly)

If it makes you happy, Trixie…

TRIXIE

Hooray!!!

TOM ‘X’ (reading)

Where has Mr Trotter been hiding all these years?

He is obviously made to be on stage! His anguish came from the heart and I have NEVER been reduced to tears by Shakespeare before.

I expect to see much more of him on the London stage.

This Fool played by Kevin Fraser is not to be missed either……

…he really understands what he is saying and knows how to interpret it for us.

The fight scene between Josh Coates and Sam Goodall as brothers Edmund and Edgar is truly spectacular – I have not seen better in a live performance.

[To see a video of the fight filmed from the audience, click:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=926678037351929&set=o.812371435457710&type=2&theatre ]

 

The production is staged in a barn that Shakespeare almost certainly knew.

Were he in the audience today, he would be amazed and alarmed by the lighting and the sound effects…..

……but he would certainly have recognised the honesty of the set……

….. and the passion of the company of players.

There is so much that is good and not to be missed about this production.

TRIXIE

Well, Boss, it seems to me that Ian Burleigh  ‘got it’…..

STEWART (brushing away a tear)

I’ll drink to that Trixie….and to him. He’s a real professional.

TOM ‘X’

Thought you might say that Chief!

 That’s why I’ve got a bottle of Dom Perignon outside…..

TRIXIE

Time for a little break, Boss?

Stewart nodded.

So it was….

‘Bye, now…

(To read the second part of Trixie’s interview with Stewart, click: HERE! )