Richard W - Theatre Extended Essay (Ideas, Plans and Sources)


So, I'll be using this page as a recurring page to keep on top of all research I've done for my Extended Essay:
This grey section are previous ideas that for my benefit I will keep on here but will not be using

19/03/2012 - I'm yet to have a meeting with Mr. Fearnehough and this is my very first very simple idea of a research question  was along the lines of - "How do Masks in Eastern Theatre (Noh, Kabuki ect) contribute to characterisation compared to Western Theatre (Commedia dell'arte)" I just want to note, that my question could completely change - This next part is just BG Info
How do the stock charters affect the person playing the character in Commedia Dell'arte?
10/05/2012 - Yet another meeting after countless but I now have a working title for my Extended Essay and will be going full steam ahead on it and it is: 'How does a characters movement in the theatrical practice of Commedia Dell'arte enhance the performance, and where in our modern day theatre can we see influences from the movements seen by stock characters in Commedia Dell'arte?'
In Julius Caesar how would a director begin to stage the Ides of March Assassination?
In Hamlet or Anthony and Cleopatra how does the struggle to acclaim status chance the dynamics of the scene?
In King Lear if the Blinding of Gloucester is witnessed how does this chance the audience's view towards Regan and Cornwall?
How does the setting and placement of the scene change dynamics of the scene (Anthony and Cleopatra A2, S2)
19/06/2012 - FINALLY HAVE A QUESTION!!!!!

 Is it more effective showing the Blinding of Gloucester or not in William Shakespeare's King Lear?

 Sources and Resources-

 THE 4 TRAGEDIES
http://www2.springfield.k12.il.us/schools/springfield/eliz/shaktragedies.html

Rupert Goold - FOOTIE STADIUM!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/feb/08/king-lear-young-vic

Chapter 4 - Seeing and not Seeing - Narrating the Visual in Shakespeare - Richard Meek
http://books.google.fr/books?id=KFoPY13nggYC&pg=PA117&dq=seeing+and+not+seeing+in+king+lear&hl=en&sa=X&ei=8UzjT_LZEoW68gOSrtDUDg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=seeing%20and%20not%20seeing%20in%20king%20lear&f=false

'To see sad sights moves more than to hear them told'

 Chapter 2 - Shakespeare and Violence - R. A. Foakes - Shakespeare's Culture of Violence
http://books.google.fr/books?id=WyAq8jTNHM0C&pg=PA13&dq=blinding++Gloucester&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Nk_jT_7SGJSIhQfGm9HVAw&ved=0CC8Q6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=blinding%20%20Gloucester&f=false

Great information on Peter Brook and the actual blinding

The Lear Diaries: The Story of the Royal National Theatre's Productions of Shakespeare's Richard III and King Lear (Diaries, Letters and Essays) - Brian Cox


 http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Lear-Diaries-Productions-Shakespeares/dp/0413698807/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

Very useful for looking at different RSC productions of King Lear + Letters ect, great resources
Background on Nunn's Lear
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/king-lear/background-on-king-lear/background-on-king-lear/486/

Small Paragraph on Gloster and is a full lefture:
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/eng366/lectures/lear.htm

PAGE 68 - MUSIC - PAGE 53 HOW IT WAS DONE - CHAPTER 3 PETER BROOK - PAGE 9 18th/19th CENTRY - 
http://books.google.fr/books?id=27j16jX_2VMC&pg=PA53&dq=blinding++Gloucester&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zV3jT8bhJMGW0QW07tCuAw&ved=0CGIQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=blinding%20of&f=false


  • Lilian Baylis put it just after interval so peeps could wait it out 1950 - Page 9
  • Reactions in different centuries - Page 9
  • However people such as Brook and Byam Shaw, geilgud put just before interval - PAGE 9
  • Spare or not spare audience? - PGAE 9
  • Brooks cuts - PAGE 54
  • How it changes - PAGE 75
  • What was it done with - 79
  • Kozintsev how he did it - 90
  • How things such as set change - 145
Teach responses on staging - probs not too useful just noting
http://shaksper.net/archive/1996/121-november/4627-re-staging-gloucesters-blinding


Violence on Stage - uni stuff
https://people.ok.ubc.ca/ggrinnel/Violence_on_Stage.html


Reveiw on Rupter Goold's King Lear
http://www.musicomh.com/theatre/lon_young-vic-lear_0209.htm

Some responses - PAGE 5
http://www.folger.edu/documents/CTh%20Lear%20Study%20Guide1.pdf

Trevor Nunn Stage version review 
http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/theatre-musicals-national/king-lear-royal-shakespeare-company/1051934/

Globe Theatre - Bulletin 2009 - PAGE 68 - blovking the blinding
http://globe-education.org/files/King_Lear_Bulletin_Final_Collated.pdf

Peter Brook Film - Blinding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv-F5TZajMs
Theme of blindness

·         http://www.field-of-themes.com/shakespeare/essays/Elear4.htm - theme of blindness - 

Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth.2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 1905. - ON KINDLE FOR FREE LOCATION 3640!!!!!
“For mere imagination the physical horror, though not lost, is so far deadened that it can do its duty as a stimulus to pity, and to that appalled dismay at the extremity of human cruelty which it is of the essence of the tragedy to excite. Thus the blinding of Gloster belongs rightly to King Lear in its proper world of imagination; it is a blot upon King Lear as a stage-play.”

·         Similarities between gloster and lear 

Interview with Nunn
·         Shapiro When Shakespeare was writing Lear, England had just gone through, if you will, the equivalent of a '9/11' moment - the Gunpowder plot - the year beforeLear was first staged. There must have been a sense that terrible destruction had been averted, and yet it was a time of great social and political rupture, reflected in the issues in the play: rebellion, loyalty, fear of a foreign invasion, an attempt on a monarch's life. So it's hard to ignore the ways in which contemporary pressures shape a play like this.
·         Nunn On the internet, we're told, there are images of people being executed, shot, beheaded - and we recoil at the thought that human beings can behave in such an animal way, and that out there are other human beings who want to watch and want to gloat over these images. It's inhuman - then we remember the blinding scene in King Lear. - http://www.rsc.org.uk/explore/king-lear/2007-director-interview.aspx

 Laurance Oliverier in King Lear - Video - Bliding at the end
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLB_TmOQaUM


CONVERSATION BETWEEN MYSELF AND A PRIMARY SOURCE

Dear (for the sake of this I will not include the name of the contact)
It's Richard here, and I was wondering if I could contact you about some things that relate to my upcoming Extended Essay I am required to write.
You'll be happy to hear that my extended is on Shakespeare. King Lear to be exact, with my current working title being:
Is it more affective to show an audience the Blinding of Gloster or not. And I was wondering if you' be willing to aid me with this with either giving me some tips for sources I could look at (primary or secondary) and also to talk to you to see whether or not you have any knowlage about King Lear, perhaps you have seen it or something?
----------------------------------------------
Hi Richard,
I have indeed seen "King Lear" several times. It was in fact the first play I ever saw performed at Stratford- I think the year was 1968! I'd be glad to help with the essay. With this particular topic I think you could consider English tragedy compared with continental tragedy- even though they both have their origins in classic Greek drama, English tragedy contains scenes and action which would have been thought shocking for a continental audience. For Gloucester's blinding you might like to consider how the same experience is presented in "Oedipus Rex."
By all means contact me and we'll find a time to discuss this. 
--------------------------------
 Thank you for replying so quickly and I appreciate the ideas you have proposed but for this extended essay I am focusing more upon solely the blinding of Gloucester and whether or not it should be witnessed.
 I have some questions I would like to ask you about it:
 For the production(s) of King Lear that you have seen how was the blinding of Gloucester shown (graphically, covered ect)? And did you feel it was better to view it in this performance? Finally, in your opinion do you think that the blinding of Gloucester should be shown (graphically) or should it be stage in another way?
 I would greatly appreciate it if you could answer these questions when you have a spare moment
 Thank you once again
 Richard 
------------------------------
 Yes this scene is usually quite graphic because this is a play about human cruelty and Gloucester's blinding is central to this idea. Usually when Gloucester's "corky arms" are bound the characters gather round the chair in which he is pinioned which means the view of the audience is partly obscured. This gives them time to apply the necessary stage makeup so when they draw back it looks like they've mutilated him. Don't forget the sound as well. The noise of Gloucester's screams of pain is very shocking. I once saw a production where Regan gouged out his eye with her fingernails with the "out vile jelly" exclamation and then squeezed the eye in her hand. Its liquid squirted and dribbled out much to the audience's horror.
 It is important to witness the scene for the reasons above. If you know "Macbeth" compare this with the murder of Duncan which we do not actually witness, just the horror of Macbeth's blood-stained hands as he emerges from Duncan's chamber. The difference is that cruelty is not so central a theme in "Macbeth" as it is in "King Lear."
 Don't forget also that Gloucester's blinding has a symbolic purpose in the play. He admits himself that when he could see he couldn't actually understand the truth but now that he is blind he finally understands about the world and our place in it. Notice that it is immediately after he is blinded that he learns the truth about Edmund's plotting and realises his son Edgar is an innocent victim. He is no longer "blinded" to the truth by his own stupidity and now sees in his blindness.
 What is very important to realise is that Shakespeare and his contemporaries wished to recreate the reality of our lives on stage not just present a kind of objective, philosophical debate about the meaning of existence. NB in continental tragedy action takes place off stage and the characters on stage discuss the moral consequences of these actions. Shakespeare  gives you both the philosophy and the action. This is a very English theatre tradition. When Shakesepeare was first presented in France audiences were scandalised. Writing about "Hamlet" Voltaire claimed "c'est l'oeuvre d'un ivrogne sauvage" - it's the work of a mad drunkard! It wasn't until the nineteenth century that the French (grudgingly!) accepted his genius.
 Don't forget that during Shakespeare's lifetime public executions and mutilations were a spectator sport. What the audience saw enacted on the stage was just a fictional representation of the reality of their everyday lives. Shakespeare's actors used props like pigs' bladders full of pigs' blood concealed beneath their shirts. During sword/dagger fights they'd pierce the bladder so that it looked like they were really bleeding.
Hope this helps. Please ask if you need any other information, ideas, opinion etc and bon courage with the essay.

Thank you very much for your previous response, but if it isn't too intrusive I would like to ask you some more questions so I can compile all the primary information I can:
What is your opinion on the blinding, personally how would you direct these scene?
Would you happen to have any contacts or sources I could look at to give an extra depth to my extended essay such as other teachers or professors that would be will to talk to me?
Finally, do you think the Blinding of Gloucester should take place before or after the interval (since in the past it has been done both ways) and do you think this has a different effect on the audience?
Richard 
--------------------------------------
Hello

I hope you are having a great holiday and that you are enjoying it fully! I'm sending you this email about my extended essay (which you may recall I've spoken to you about in the past) and was wondering since I'm collecting primary sources you could answer a few questions upon King Lear and the Blinding of Gloucester? Thank you very much, If you have the time to do so these are the questions:


Which performances of King Lear have you watched (year,director,location?Understandable if you are unable to answer director)? 

In these performance(s) how was the Blinding of Gloucester staged (was he covered up and blinded or graphically blinded in front of the audience)?

Do you think the Blinding of Gloucester should take place before or after the interval (since in the past it has been done both ways) and do you think this has a different effect on the audience or not?

Do you feel that veiwing the Blinding of Gloucester in a more graphic way (such as in Peter Brook's stage version where his eye is taken out with the spur of a boot) or if the blinding is not witnessed and is just left to imagination is has a more profound effect on the audience?

Anything extra you would like to include on the Blinding of Gloucester (you don't have to answer this question if you don't have anything extra!)


Thank you for your time once again 

Richard Walker
------------------------------

 Hi Richard,

Here we go:-

1968 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Stratford: Lear Eric Poter; director Trevor Nunn

1990 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Stratford: John Wood Lear; director Nicholas Hytner

1993 Royal ShakespeareTheatre Stratford: Robert Stephens Lear (so brilliant I went and shook his hand after the performance); director Adrian Noble

All strictly gold standard.

Blindings always graphic. Best before the interval for pace plus allows the audience a stiff gin and tonic to get over it before it gets even worse.

Do it graphically. This is Jacobean theatre. It's important to shock and it's very important to emphasise the cruelty. This is a play which is supposed to challenge our belief in an ultimately beneficent god, so Gloucester's suffering and the delight in his suffering are some of the ways in which Shakepeare shakes our perception of the world. "A full look at the worst."

Hope this helps. Have fun

Best regards

 (NOTE: English theater during the reign of King James I, from 1603 to 1625. In the history of English drama and literature, the "Jacobean" era of theater featured playwrights such as William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, and John Webster.) http://plays.about.com/od/j/g/jacobean.htm

--------------------------------------------
Hi 

I just want to say a big thank you for the swiftness of your reply to my last email! I am very grateful you agreed to help me!

Enjoy the remainders for your holiday!

Richard
Extact from Apple Store Book - An Approach to W. Shakespeare’s Plays-Fifteen- King Lear, Students’ Academy, Smashwords Edition - Published - Jan. 28, 2012 
------------4--------
In King Lear, the old king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the murder of his daughter and the torture and blinding of the Earl of Gloucester.
------------------

 His two daughters are so selfish and blind in the newly acquired authority that they begin to weaken their father’s authority.
------------------
Gloucester decides to help King Lear, though he knows that there is certain danger in it. Regan and her husband, Cornwall, discover him helping Lear, accuse him of treason, blind him, and turn him out to wander the countryside.
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Gloucester is a nobleman loyal to King Lear whose rank, earl, is below that of duke. The first thing we learn about Gloucester is that he is an adulterer, having fathered a bastard son, Edmund. His fate is in many ways parallel to that of Lear: he misjudges which of his children to trust. He appears weak and ineffectual in the early acts, when he is unable to prevent Lear from being turned out of his own house, but he later demonstrates that he is also capable of great bravery.
--------------
Most readers conclude that Lear is simply blind to the truth
-------------
Betrayal

 Betrayals play a critical role in the play and show the workings of wickedness in both the familial and political realms—here, brothers betray brothers and children betray fathers. Goneril and Regan’s betrayal of Lear raises them to power in Britain, where Edmund, who has betrayed both Edgar and Gloucester, joins them. However, the play suggests that betrayers inevitably turn on one another, showing how Goneril and Regan fall out when they both become attracted to Edmund, and how their jealousies of one another ultimately lead to mutual destruction. Additionally, it is important to remember that the entire play is set in motion by Lear’s blind, foolish betrayal of Cordelia’s love for him, which reinforces that at the heart of every betrayal lies a skewed set of values.
-----------------
Blindness

 Gloucester’s physical blindness symbolizes the metaphorical blindness that grips both Gloucester and the play’s other father figure, Lear. The parallels between the two men are clear: both have loyal children and disloyal children, both are blind to the truth, and both end up banishing the loyal children and making the wicked one(s) their heir(s). Only when Gloucester has lost the use of his eyes and Lear has gone mad does each realize his tremendous error. It is appropriate that the play brings them together near Dover in Act IV to commiserate about how their blindness to the truth about their children has cost them dearly.
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Admitting that he helped Lear escape, Gloucester swears that he will see Lear’s wrongs avenged. Cornwall replies, “See ’t shalt thou never,” and proceeds to dig out one of Gloucester’s eyes, throw it on the floor, and step on it
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One of Cornwall’s servants suddenly steps in, saying that he cannot stand by and let this outrage happen. Cornwall draws his sword and the two fight. The servant wounds Cornwall, but Regan grabs a sword from another servant and kills the first servant before he can injure Cornwall further. Irate, the wounded Cornwall gouges out Gloucester’s remaining eye.
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The shocking violence of Act III, scene vii is one of the bloodiest onstage actions in all of Shakespeare. Typically, especially in Shakespeare’s later plays, murders and mutilations take place offstage. Here, however, the violence happens right before our eyes, with Cornwall’s snarl “Out, vile jelly!” as a ghastly complement to the action (III.vii.86). (How graphic our view of the violence is depends on how it is staged.) The horror of Gloucester’s blinding marks a turning point in the play: cruelty, betrayal, and even madness may be reversible, but blinding is not. It becomes evident at this point that the chaos and cruelty permeating the play have reached a point of no return.
------------
This violence is mitigated slightly by the unexpected display of humanity on the part of Cornwall’s servants. Just as Cornwall and Regan violate a range of social norms, so too do the servants, by challenging their masters. One servant gives his life trying to save Gloucester; others help the injured Gloucester and bring him to the disguised Edgar. Even amid the increasing chaos, some human compassion remains.

http://www.ett.org.uk/productions/40/king-lear
Image of the Blinded Gloucester
Yhttp://theatrenotes.blogspot.fr/2007/08/brooks-lear_21.html
ou need to get hold of an article called "Lear Log" by Charles Marowitz, who was an assistant director on Brook's 1962 staging (also with Schofield, Webb, Worth, Cusack and others who went on to appear in the film).
The article goes into details about Brook's process, influences and how he suggested the actors grow thier characters. It's one of those 'Rosetta Stones" documents from that incredible time in the 1960's when theatre was changing.

 It was published eventually in the book "Theatre at Work: Playwrites and productions in the Modern British Theatre" by Marowitz and Simon Trussler. [Methuen & Co, London 1967]

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1124701?uid=3738016&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=56277191593
THE LEAR LOG - BIBLE!!!!!

 Paul Scofield - Documentary on his Career (includes King Lear)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GphFlxqhylY 

 A small Journal  from 1987 on Peter Brooks 1962-64 King Lear - Page 45 final two paragraphs
https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/jdtc/article/viewFile/1651/1615

The blinding of Gloucester was similarly intensified ,agonizingly explicit but embedded in domestic routine. Its uncompromising brutality was stressed by the elimination of the lines of the second and third servants who denounce the violence and offer to help Gloucester11 In addition, Cornwall's "Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot" was literalized when Gloucester was tilted back in the chair to which he was tied and Cornwall put the spur of his boot in Gloucester's eye. The blind Gloucester, a rag thrown over his head, was then left to grope his way off the stage while servants clearing the set were too busy to help him. Marowitz makes it clear that Brook's intention in the scene was to remove the possibility of catharsis which, if it leaves spectators shaken, also leaves them reassured:
“As [Gloucester] is groping about pathetically, the house-lights come up—the action continuing in full light for several seconds afterwards. If this works, it should jar the audience into a new kind of adjustment to Gloucester and his tragedy. The house-lights remove all possibility of aesthetic shelter, and the act of blinding is seen in a colder light than would be possible otherwise.(28-29)”

 I previously contacted the Globe Theatre Research Team on this topic and this is the reply I got back:
Thanks for your question.  To answer your question – ‘Whether or not it is more effective to witness the Blinding of Gloucester or not’ – I would suggest you concentrate on how people have chosen to stage it, why they made that choice, and (most importantly) how you agree or disagree with their decisions and reasoning.  In terms of sources, many modern editions of King Lear provide some sort of performance history – perhaps talking about a wide range of plays or making a case study of one in particular – and I would look at those (such as the Oxford Shakespeare or Arden Shakespeare series) to see what they say.  Another area to look is at books specifically addressing performance, such as The Shakespeare Handbooks: King Lear, which often detail how people have staged certain scenes and why.  Additionally, you can watch movie adaptations of King Lear, such as PBS’s version with Ian McKellen as Lear which should be available for free online.  Finally, I suggest you look up theatre reviews of King Lear – reviews scholars and / or journalists have made of the play in journals, magazines, newspapers, etc.  At least a few of them will discuss the blinding scene, and these reviews often include some sort of discussion as to whether a performances choice was ‘successful’.  Hope that helps! Best wishes, Globe Research Team

 RSC STAGE HISTORY OF KING LEAR
http://www.rsc.org.uk/explore/king-lear/stage-history.aspx
Nineteenth-century audiences were spared the distress of Gloucester's blinding; it was only later in the twentieth century that theatre-goers were tough enough to take Shakespeare straight! Victorian audiences found their satisfactions in painstakingly recreated and elaborately picturesque visions of Ancient Britain and in the thrilling effects of storms and battles. Charles Kean's 1858 production at the Princess's Theatre, for example, chose 800AD as the date for Lear's reign. Much of the text had to be sacrificed to allow time for the complex scene changes necessary to achieve such 'authentic' historical recreations.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2007/may/07/rsc.theatre
slight insight to how iyt happenedn

 http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/pkirwan/tag/lear/
talks slightly

King Lear (RSC) @ The Courtyard Theatre 2010


  Geoffrey Freshwater gave a tender performance as Gloucester, beurocratic and desk-bound in earlier scenes but dignified and painfully desperate after his gruesome blinding, for which Cornwall (Clarence Smith, reprising a role he played for Headlong Theatre only last year) used a red-hot poker.


King Lear @ The Everyman Theatre2008


 The younger characters, however, were less strong, relying more on hysterics for impact. Charlotte Randle’s Regan was decent in her earlier scenes, with confident poise and a casual disregard for her father, but during the blinding of Gloucester the hysterics began, taking sexual delight in the torture and – in a particularly gruesome moment – tearing Gloucester’s second eye out with her teeth, to Cornwall’s stunned horror.

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/theatre-musicals-national/king-lear-royal-shakespeare-company/1450413/

King Lear (Royal Shakespeare Company) 2010

 Overall, however, the play was amazing. The actors were also managed to recreate the scene where the mans eyes are gauged out with a poker, a fabulously gruesome moment. 


http://www.oxonianreview.org/wp/lear-and-othello/
Rupert Goold
HOw it is domne

 http://brianloganburntbridges.blogspot.fr/
But there’s some rubbish in here too – and (although I wish it weren’t so) the rubbish often makes the stronger impression. The scene in which Cornwall and Regan blind Gloucester is the most ridiculous of the year. It’s not the only moment in Goold’s Lear that is psychologically unconvincing. But it’s the most preposterous, as Lear’s daughter and her hubbie flit instantly from believable human beings to shlock Gothic sex fiends. Cornwall gouges out Gloucester’s left eye. Regan snogs him, wallowing in the gore. She bites out the old man’s other peeper. Blood spews everywhere. The couple get frisky again. Savagery is a turn-on, see? And Regan and Cornwall are, like, baddies. Thus are two of the plays intriguing characters shrunk to cartoon grotesquery.


http://londonist.com/2009/02/theatre_review_king_lear_at_the_you.php



Shows how to site an important source
https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/jdtc/rt/captureCite/1651/1615
Lieblein, L.. Jan Kott, Peter Brook, and King Lear. Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, North America, 1 1 03 1987.


Previous jornal
https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/jdtc/article/view/1651/1615 


Theatre of cruelty
http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/staffhome/siryan/academy/theatres/theatre%20of%20cruelty.htm

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