King Lear (Series 5 Episode 1)

First transmitted 19th September 1982

Michael Hordern rages against the dying of the light

Cast: Michael Hordern (King Lear), Norman Rodway (Earl of Gloucester), Gillian Barge (Goneril), Penelope Wilton (Regan), Brenda Blethyn (Goneril), Frank Middlemass (The Fool), John Shrapnel (Earl of Kent), Anton Lesser (Edgar), Michael Kitchen (Edmund), John Bird (Duke of Albany), Julian Curry (Duke of Cornwall), John Grillo (Oswald), David Weston (Duke of Burgundy), Harry Waters (King of France), Ken Stott (Curran)

Director: Jonathan Miller

Well it’s been a while and, if it’s any excuse, I’ve been extraordinarily busy with the last play I directed in Oxford – none other than a certain King Lear. So gosh and blimey it’s been interesting watching this production while a host of my own ideas have been bubbling around my head: always an interesting time to watch any production. Added to this, I’ve got some rather fond memories of watching this production during my A-Level studies, where several performances made a real impression on me – not least John Shrapnel’s Kent and Michael Kitchen’s Edmund.

So it’s interesting watching it again now, especially as I have now seen so many of the other films in this series – as well as all the rest of the productions directed and produced by Miller. This was Miller’s last production for the series and, apparently, it was not his first choice to work on it. He had directed a BBC version seven years prior to this – also starring Michael Hordern as Lear and Frank Middlemass as the Fool – and proposed merely showing that production again as part of this series. When that idea was rejected, Miller was commissioned to direct a new production. Being, presumably, pleased with many elements of his last production, Miller recast many of the same actors and then reset elements of the first production within some of the new staging ideas he had been experimenting with throughout the series.

From Troilus and Timon through to Antony and Cleopatra, Miller had increasingly experimented with stripped down, impressionistic sets that bring the focus into the acting. He set the plays themselves in increasingly non-realistic settings that stress the heightened emotions and events that occur. This style also worked to eliminate the clunking realism of earlier productions (Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It spring instantly to mind). The location used here is a deliberately wooden stage, almost reminiscent of the original Globe theatre. A black backcloth is used to establish the background (and no effort is made to suggest it is anything other than a cloth). The only other location used is a bare wasteland for the storm scenes, which is adapted into a sandy wilderness for the final battle. It’s deliberately bleak and spare for a production that stresses the harsh and violent world of the play. It’s matched by the Velazquez-inspired costumes, all of which are black and white with only touches of colour to thematically link characters (such as the white in the Fool’s facepaint mirroring the white in Cordelia’s).

The camera work also aims to make the action “up close and personal” with a proliferation of close-ups that zoom in on the actors’ (often impassioned) faces as if to pull the emotions out like teeth. The storm scene in particular relies on a series of prolonged close-ups of Hordern’s soaked face, while the Fool and Kent can be seen in the background. Gloucester’s blinding is largely framed from a reverse close-up on the Earl tied to a chair. A common shot is a side-on close up in which an actor speaks while a second actor stands (out of focus slightly) alongside them facing the camera – this is repeatedly used, perhaps to suggest a continuing sense of events being “witnessed” by others.

Even wider-angle shots, such as the final death of Lear, use framing and actor positioning to create a triangular “zooming in” effect, where the visual attention of the viewer is pulled down towards Lear at a focal point of the other characters in the scene. Of course this decision to use close-ups isn’t always effective: noticeably during the fight sequence between Edmund and Edgar, the entire fight is delivered in tight close-up on Edmund’s face. Sure this might give the feeling that we are judging Edmund – but it also means it’s rather difficult to tell what is going on (particularly as the fast paced movement makes it hard for the cameraman to keep up!). 

Perhaps this is part of the issue with the production itself: it feels like almost a greatest hits of Miller’s directing for the series, rather than him bringing a fresh new perspective to the series. While Shrew and Antony and Cleopatra seemed like fresh interpretations, this seems more like Miller reworking the play in response to ideas rather than other way around - something I was less aware of when watching it all those years ago.

Miller’s general design aesthetic is to integrate the motivations and feelings of the characters very closely, and this forensic style is equally clear in Hordern’s studied and well observed performance as Lear, which is packed with little details here and there. Indeed, Miller and Hordern’s intention to tightly analyse Lear throughout actually rather stacks the deck, particularly in the opening scene, towards exploring Lear’s mental strength (or rather weakness). From the first scene Lear is clearly struggling – he even seems momentarily confused and a little lost when entering the court scene, before seeming to remember what he is there for. 

Throughout the early scenes of the play, his Lear is twitchy and uncertain, almost nervous about standing still, as if uncertain or determined to keep moving forward so he knows where he is. Although this onset of senility is overplayed, Hordern does really capture a sense of childish, almost sulky, capriciousness in Lear – Cordelia’s famous “nothing” is met with stunned silence, before a temperamental explosion (and the division of the kingdom into two has a fantastic improvisational feel to it) which is echoed again in his fury towards Goneril in A1 S4 (which even seems to shock the Fool in its viciousness). What’s particularly interesting about the performance of Lear in his pomp is that he never seems too regal, but more like a self-important bank manager.

His Lear is capable of warmth – he is clearly close to the Fool (as seen in A1 S5 and during the storm sequence) – and is able to demonstrate affection to Regan in A2 S4 (even if it is grounded in manipulation) but he is also clearly equally capable of self-delusion. In A1 S5 he distractedly mutters “I did her wrong” (of Cordelia) before clearly dismissing the thought from himself. In A2 S4 he seems to persuade himself that Regan is pleased to see him (despite all evidence to the contrary in Penelope Wilton’s stony reaction) before angrily lashing out. It all builds towards the impression of a man teetering on the edge of from the start, tipping during his impassioned raging during the storm. 

Edgar’s mania mesmerises and inspires him to embrace the storm inside himself, with Lear increasingly becoming lost in broken conversation and mutterings, despite keeping an air of firmness. His madness is in fact laced through nicely with moment of calmness and reflection – “for I lack soliders” in A4 S5 has a particular sadness, as if remembering his lost knights. The cruelty is still there – the mocking of Gloucester’s blindness has an edge to it – but there is a clear continuation of underlying character traits in Hodern’s performance from sanity to madness – which makes it even more unnecessary for him to overplay the madness traits in the opening scene.

Recovering from madness, Hordern is gentle and apologetic, delighting in Cordelia’s presence. Hordern holds her tight and can barely let her go, his eyes rarely straying towards anything or anybody else in the scene. Hordern is also particularly strong portraying Lear’s grief at the death of this beloved child, mixing again moments of pained clarity with an almost dreamlike lack of understanding and acceptance of the events around him. Hordern’s performance makes a very watchable performance of this role – but it seems to lack something, maybe because Hordern himself is not naturally a ‘charasmatic superstar actor’, with his style better suited to character roles (such as in All’s Well That Ends Well) rather than a more ‘glamourous’ part like Lear. His style inverted rather better as Prospero than it does here as Lear. He’s watchable and touching at several points, but he is never quite as moving as the part perhaps requires.

Away from the lead, there are of course several other performances of note. Michael Kitchen has a great deal of charisma (if not depth of character or motivation beyond “he is a villain”) as Edmund, though today visually he bears more than a passing resemblance to Blackadder. His bastard is a cool and relaxed man, determined and intelligent, who makes himself believable with a low-key assurance. Kitchen frequently looks into the camera – notably when kissing Goneril – involving the audience in his schemes. He makes a firm contrast with Anton Lesser’s at first more highly-strung Edgar (he even needs to clash both swords for Edgar in A2 S1). 

Lesser however adds a great deal of development to Edgar from A3 onwards, his Poor Tom is intense and vulnerable (though a design decision to give him a Christ like appearance – including stigmata – definitely overplays it). Edgar himself becomes increasingly still, distant and devout, going from mortified pain at Gloucester’s fate to a monkish authority and even a touch of cruelty after the killing of Oswald. In the final confrontation between the brothers, Edgar wears a death mask resembling Gloucester (a nice touch), and Edmund’s authoritative assurance is broken into a desire to salvage something from his life.

Of Lear’s children, Gillan Barge and Penelope Wilton are little too close to villainous from the start, both nakedly selfish and deceiving from the opening scene. Barge’s Goneril is an aloof, imperial figure, with a sternness that only slightly cracks under Lear’s vicious verbal assault in A1 S4 (which even Kent and the Fool seem shocked by) though she tightly holds her hands throughout, and she allows a triumph on “Do you mark that” as Lear exits. She seems a colder, more controlled figure than Wilton’s Regan, who comes across here as more instinctive. Wilton does use her softness as a performer to good effect however, her concern for Gloucester in A2 S1 a nice parallel for the blinding that will come. In that blinding she seems fascinated by the violence her husband unleashes, while her love for Edmund later seems almost fanatical in its devotion. Brenda Blethyn’s Cordelia has a surface softness that hides an inner determination, though her prominent dressing in white is in its way as heavy handed as Edgar’s stigmata.

As mentioned earlier, John Shrapnel is probably a stand out as a dutifully loyal Kent, a man who seems almost incapable of self definition but can only see himself in relation to others (specifically Lear or Cordelia) rather than finding his own way. The disguising of Kent works very effectively and he also brings a great deal of gruff humour to several key moments, while his desolation at the play’s end is strikingly effective. Norman Rodway makes an arrogant Gloucester who only finds wisdom when it is too late. Frank Middlemass’ Fool is a mountain of vibrant anger and comic aggression matched with a childish vulnerability and self pity at key moments.

So overall, there are many qualities to be admired in this production. But stylistically it’s not a complete success, with its televisual craft occasionally getting slightly in the way of the story. Its reliance on the close-up at points obscures the story (most notably in the storm scene) with several moments losing the impact of the wider emotional experience of the characters. Miller’s decision to not use cut aways in the many scenes that feature large numbers of people on stage (but only a few talking at any particular point) does mean that some actors get lost in the shuffle in scenes. Similarly heavy handed acting and design decisions (stigmata and Lear’s dementia for starters) take things too far.

But that is to ignore the good stuff on the table here. Many of the performers are excellent, particularly Kitchen, Shrapnel and Wilton while Hordern certainly gives everything he has to his Lear, even if the effect at times doesn’t quite match up to how I personally might see the character, and even if he sometimes lacks the charisma the role might require. But the cut down design works quite well (even if it isn’t particularly visually interesting) and the bleakness of the play is mirrored well in the black and white costumes on display. As a display of intelligent interpretation of this most complex play in the cannon, it is certainly far more interesting than many of the other great tragedies in the cannon – better than Hamlet, perhaps a little much of a shadow of Othello. And that perhaps is the final issue: it feels like Miller is simply reworking or resubmitting previous ideas from old productions (both of this play and others) rather than bringing a true unique freshness to it as he did with The Taming of the Shrew.

Conclusion

A solid production with several exciting performances and design flourishes: but it feels a little like Miller on autopilot, as if the production was almost done to complete his contract rather than because Miller felt he had something fresh, new or interesting to bring to the play. If it’s true that he wished to simply retransmit his original television production from a few years before, perhaps he felt that remounting the same production in the style of Othello and other productions was the next best thing. So, despite the good things here, it feels like a wasted opportunity, and a shame that a different director in the series – an Elijah Moshinky or Jane Howell – didn’t get a chance to put their own spin on the play. It’s still up there with the better of the productions, but it could have been better.

NEXT TIME: Richard Griffiths’ gets into all sorts of bother with other people’s wives in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Timon of Athens (Series 3 Episode 5)

First Transmitted 16th April 1981

Jonathan Pryce rails against the system and everyone in it

Cast: Jonathan Pryce (Timon of Athens), Norman Rodway (Apemantus), John Shrapnel (Alcibades), John Welsh (Flavius), John Fortune (Poet), John Bird (Painter), Hugh Thomas (Lucius), James Cossins (Lucullus), Max Arthur (Lucilius), David Neal (First Senator), John Justin (Second Senator), Donald Gee (Ventidius), Geoffrey Collins (Flaminius), Sebastian Shaw (Old Athenian), Tony Jay (Merchant), John Bailey (Sempronius), Diana Dors (Timandra), Elayne Sharling (Phyrnia)

Director: Jonathan Miller

 

Perhaps one of the best ways to justify the existence of the BBC Shakespeare product is that it allows you to see plays from the cannon that otherwise only rarely make a stage production let alone a film version. So welcome, one and all, to what I can confidently say is the only film version of Timon of Athens that is ever going to be made. Even this production had a convoluted journey to the screen. Michael Bogdanov was originally hired to direct but his radical reinterpretation (in a mode modern oriental setting) was nixed by the investors. Bogdanov was out and Jonathan Miller stepped up to direct his second production of the cycle at short notice. So what is remarkable is the depth and ingenuity of ideas in this production, considering Miller had extremely minimal preparation time.

 

But first things first: the play. Now there is a reason Timon is so little staged – the second half. Put bluntly, for those who don’t know the plot, Acts 1-3 cover the fall of Timon, who lavishes gifts and money on flatterers and parasites until his wealth is gone – at which point those same recipients refuse to help him out. He accuses them to their face of ingratitude and leaves Athens. And that is effectively it in terms of plot. Act Four is one massive scene (over a quarter of the production here) where Timon rants and rails to a series of characters. He dies off stage and Alcibades (an exile) returns and conquers Athens (all off stage) and reads his eulogy.

 

The play is quite possibly incomplete, quite certainly a collaboration between Shakespeare and others and its narrative grinds to a complete halt after the halfway-mark in favour of discussions around the nature of man. It’s highbrow stuff and probably the most overtly intellectual writing Shakespeare has done – but it doesn’t make particularly good drama. Put simply, when your lead character becomes one of those scruffy tramps who stand on corners shouting late on a Friday night, then you are in a bad place. Timon himself is barely a character, more of a mouthpiece for a series of cynical and misanthropic views (on the page he hardly comes into focus as a personality until he has lost his wealth). The other characters remain similarly one-note, undefined and in many cases even unnamed. It offers no satisfying resolution either to its plot or the themes it has addressed. It is, to be frank, as close as Shakespeare gets to a failure (perhaps the reason there is no record of it even being performed in his lifetime). And unfortunately those problems are evident in this production as well.

 

So the first thing when directing a production is overcoming the dramatic limitations of the play. This is something Miller makes a highly accomplished effort at doing. As with his Taming of the Shrew, this production is marked with several long continuous takes throughout, with the camera at times moving around the frame to offer a new perspective within the same shot. This works particularly effectively with establishing the teeming crowd of people awaiting Timon’s arrival at the start of the play and also gives Jonathan Pryce the opportunity to really get to grips with Timon’s later long emotional speeches, many of which are delivered in a single take. As before, it also combines some of the best elements of film and theatre.

 

Miller also embraces the theme of greed throughout the play, focusing on the essential greed of men (women are totally absent except a couple of prostitutes in Act Four, who are themselves serving men’s greed). Through the dinner sequence in A1 S2, he uses faster cutting to move face to face around the dinner table, showing the lords tucking in with an almost crazed zeal into the luscious feast Timon has laid before them (Timon himself, the camera notes, doesn’t eat a thing – his greed satisfied by the praise from those around him), with these shots interspersed with tight close ups of meat being ripped from bones by greasy hands, roasted birds being sliced up and cups of wine being raised to mouths. With cast members throughout practically drooling at the mouth, falling over themselves to laugh at Timon’s jokes, it’s a great visual way of demonstrating the naked avarice on show.

 

Throughout the first half of the production (A1-A3) the camera continually lingers on objects and elements associated with wealth and money. In A3 when Timon sends (in vain) for help to his three best friends, each scene is introduced with a close up of, in turn, a money box, a set of measuring scales in a counting house and an extravagant meal – while each person in turn pleads their lack of means. In other scenes, close-ups work in tight on accounts and coins, the apparatus of wealth a constant presence throughout. It’s clear, all the time, what is on people’s mind – and exactly what they want from Timon.

 

 

 

Miller also uses the full depth of the frame at several moments, with characters moving far back to the deeper parts of the frame to deliver dialogue or engage in conversation. As well as making first Timon’s home, then his wasteland, appear larger it also serves to dwarf the characters themselves – both in first the opulence, then the bleakness, of their surroundings and to draw attention to their own petty concerns and stunted outlook. It also opens out a play which can otherwise become quite the chamber piece.

 

Tackling the second half of the play, Miller takes Beckett’s nihilism as his inspiration, the wasteland an eternal pebble beach (without the sea or sun) introduced in a photo negative shot with Timon posed on the floor, arms outstretched like a sacrifice. Pryce’s body is covered in weeping sores, and the camera pushes him close to the viewer on the right of the frame, a position he maintains almost throughout the scene, reflecting his now entrenched views. By the end of A5 S1 he has retreated into a cave, his lines delivered either off camera or on a close up of his head lying on the floor, lit in such a way that his eyes seem to become his distinctive feature – looking increasingly less human or capable of empathy. As earlier, key close-ups are used well, particularly the final close-up of Timon, his hand digging into the pebbled ground around him as if preparing his grave (this image is then nicely mirrored by Flavius stroking Timon’s eulogy text, the play’s final image).

 

 

The imagery and directorial choices throughout are intelligent and consistent throughout and actually do a good job of adding a certain level of drama to the second half of the play, and are particularly effective in the first half of the play. Miller also combines several characters and streamlines a lot of the text (there are some quite big cuts here with even one or two scenes hitting the cutting room floor entirely), producing a production that is a clear interpretation of the play as a rumination on greed, selfishness, bitterness and a lack of self-awareness.

 

He’s helped by a hugely committed performance by Jonathan Pryce in the title role. Pryce very neatly demonstrates Timon’s feelings and also his lack of personal development. His Timon is a man who takes a childlike passion in pleasure, enjoys being the centre of attention, but seems naively unaware of the nature of the world, unable to reconcile its shades of grey with his own black and white views (I give money to people so they like me). Throughout the opening of the play, he seems almost wide-eyedly keen to secure the affection of his friends, hungry for every opportunity for the praise it brings him. He seems unable to comprehend the loss of his wealth when confronted with it. He seems unable to think of a course of action or understand the consequences of his actions, assuming everything will turn out fine. When his temper goes thermonuclear in A3 it seems more like a spoiled child screaming at his parents than a reasoned turning against mankind. Giving depth to a character as shallow as a puddle is a fine achievement.

 

Pryce handles the epic monologues of rage with considerable energy. Reportedly his room smashing, hate-filled diatribe that concludes A3 was unrehearsed – Miller merely told him to go for it and instructed the cameraman to keep him centre of the frame. The decision to film this in a single take allows Pryce to tap into some quite elemental force through this sequence – as he rants, raves, smashes plates and tables around him it’s quite something to see, a volcanic force of nature quite unlike anything else in the series. What makes it really work is that it seems consistent with the same, quiet, self-obsessed Timon scene in A1 and A2 – it’s merely refocusing and re-expressing the same basic character traits: entitlement, selfishness and certainty.

 

For A4 and A5, Pryce’s bitterness and isolation again seem child-like – having lost one credo, he embraces its opposite, condemning all men as worthless and greedy. Confronted with first Alcibades than Apemantus he alternates between bitterness, pain, fear, shrillness and fury. This works particularly well in the conversation with Apemantus the professional cynic: Pryce makes it clear that, just as Timon demanded to be the centre of a circle of friends at the start of the play, so is he determined to be the finest hater of men, demonstrating his pride has not been lost with his wealth. He is also not afraid to make Timon, even in his despair, never overly sympathetic. Pryce’s performance is a tour-de-force of energy and fury, but it’s also very successful at adding a depth and personality to a character who is little more than a cipher on the page.

 

There isn’t a lot of room for the other performances, but Norman Rodway brings a nice steel and amorality behind a wry exterior to Apemantus – it’s clear he is a guy who cares nothing for anybody. Miller allows him to break the fourth wall at several points in A1, to point up the naked greed on show, opportunities Rodway embraces. John Shrapnel makes a decent fist of the undeveloped Alcibades, suggesting determination and a sense of honour. John Welsh’s Flavius combines loyalty with a deep frustration at Timon, culminating in a touching silence when confronted with his death. Good performances abound from the rest of the cast, although Johns Bird and Fortune do play their parts a little too closely to a Long Johns sketch for my taste.

 

At the end, the faults of this production are due to the text itself rather than anything connected to the production. Miller uses a very effective range of devices and filming choices to bring the play and its themes to life. Pryce works very hard to bring a depth and consistency to Timon. The production looks great – the set in the first half is particularly impressive – and there are plenty of interesting flourishes and ideas throughout. The fact that the second half drags slightly is the fault of Shakespeare rather than anyone here.

 

Conclusion

A fine production of a flawed piece of writing with some very good performances, with Pryce standing out in a role that he makes more than just an opportunity for showboating. Intelligently directed by Jonathan Miller, its themes – greed, corruption and cynicism – are brought to the fore throughout without hitting the audience over the head. As far as this play is concerned, it still doesn’t quite work and the second half is a lot less interesting to watch than the first half (it would make a great one-act play), but this is a very good attempt at it. I’ve seen it twice now and enjoyed it both times.

 

NEXT TIME: Jonathan Miller remains in the director’s chair and gives us Colin Blakely and Jane Lapotaire as a deliberately unglamourous Antony and Cleopatra.