Artistic Director’s Message
Welcome to Seattle Shakespeare Company’s first production
of King Lear. Fasten your seat belts....
The need for love and recognition in King Lear is overwhelming.
I feel each character just aching for it, yet something in the make-up
of these families challenges their very ability to express it well,
and more importantly, to act on it well. At a recent national Shakespeare
theatre convention I attended, NEA Chairman Dana Gioia gave the
keynote address. I actually feel hopeful about this aspect of our
government after hearing this exquisite poet speak. Chairman Gioia
was prompted to discuss his favorite plays—and without hesitation
he said his favorite tragedy was King Lear.
It was an opinion echoed by the majority of my fellow Shakespeare
producers and practitioners. It surprised me; I thought Hamlet would
dominate as it does with academics. Lear held forth because we all
were responding to its great depth of feeling. Lear is not a play
of the intellect—it’s a visceral, primal, howling play,
perfectly constructed to mine the complexity of human relationships
and to illuminate our great need for them.
It is so all-encompassing that Regan’s words “Tis hard,
almost impossible” spring to mind when one contemplates producing
it. Yet it’s a story that screams to be told and our community
is ripe for the telling. So here we are together: this amazing play,
these earnest brave artists, and you, the reason for it all.
I am proud of you, our audience, for coming into this experience.
It is your courage to explore this play that gives us the courage
to be out here with you.
May we all see better.
- Stephanie Shine
A Note from Director John Langs
Tell me my daughters,
Which of you shall we say doth love us most...
From the very first scene characters are asked to profess their
love and loyalty, so begins one of the many thematic tributaries
that make up the mighty river of King Lear. In building this production,
we focused on this aching need for love, power and status that exists
in virtually every character. In the pursuit of that which they
most desire they often turn a willful blind eye to the truth, entering
a storm of their own creation. It was our guiding principle that
no character in this story was evil and that all had the power to
choose. The impact of the tragedy would build as each character
had to grapple with the often terrible weight of their own decisions.
As all of us must do.
This play works on so many levels: the beauty of its language,
the metaphysical meditation, the cautionary morality tale. It is
all this and more. To honor its complexities the motto of our preparation
was to tell the story with simplicity and honesty, and trust in
the writing to create a powerful and resonating experience. One
that I dearly hope moves you and makes you think.
King Lear has been called the most nihilistic of all Shakespeare’s
plays. As the body count grows there is strong argument for that
reasoning, but the play offers its own brand of hope: the hope that
in the devastating tempest of our own creation our pretensions will
be torn away and we will be made ready to receive; that when we
are stripped to our core and the clouds part, redemption is possible;
that the sweet truth of looking selflessly into the face of another,
even for a single moment, may be the greatest reward for our terrible
endurance; that this reward is greater than crowns, countries, status
and wealth, and more powerful than torture or madness.
Thank you.
- John Langs
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