Professor David Peimer
King Lear: A Parable of Loss and Forgiveness
Summary
Professor David Peimer discusses one of Shakespeare’s most famous dramatic plays, King Lear. He specifically explores what the play is really about and whether it still has significance today.
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.
Well, that’s a great question. I mean, I loved the Paul Scofield in the Peter Brook production of the 70s many years ago. Then I was going to show a clip here but I can’t now, with the Orson Welles, but I don’t think he’s nearly as good. I think the Paul Scofield, everyone wants that kind of existential understanding of King Lear, and these themes and ideas that I mentioned. I think Anthony Hopkins in this contemporary version does a brilliant job. And I think that’s maybe the most… Not just because it’s the most recent, but I think it’s the most powerful of our times of the last five, seven, eight years, for me.
No, but what is interesting is that I think he took a huge risk in doing this, because he, as I said, first showed it in front of King James I. Remember, this is divine right of kings, absolute rulers, monarch, et cetera. And the first production we know of was done in the palace in front of the king. The king would have been in front row centre. After this, he wrote two comedies and didn’t come back to this. So he might have pushed the edge a bit too far, but he wasn’t put into the Tower of London, he wasn’t banned, no, nothing happened, it was all fine. And I think because he would have said, “Okay, look, I’m showing a king in this light, et cetera, but it’s what happens when a king goes mad.” King went mad. That’s why he also made these decisions ridiculously at the beginning with the daughters. So I think he builds in a way out as a writer to justify it if King James was a bit irritated. This is all pure speculation on my behalf.
I mean, in the production I mentioned with Simon Russell Beale and Sam Mendes’ directing, they introduced a little element of dementia or hints of physical and mental dementia. And I’m ambivalent, I’m not sure about that, because I think that can distract from all these other themes that we’re talking about today. I think yes, he is old and he knows it. He says, “I’m just old despite …” But he’s so articulate about himself and about others. Yes, and is aware of age. I think Shakespeare is more interested in what age does to the human soul, the human nature, the human person, not just the physical ailment side of it, in a way. So I think… Yeah, you know, I think that this can be taken and it can be interpreted in so many ways. That’s one example. It can be more existential, like Scofield with Peter Brook. It can be more… sort of civil war, family, political, and philosophical like the Hopkins production tries to do. Or more political like the Sam Mendes one tried.