This weekend I had the wonderful privilege of attending King Lear at the Almeida Theatre with Jonathan Pryce in the title role. I love this play and know it deeply–found myself mouthing the lines along as though I were in a Lear sing-a-long…comparing this production to previous ones I have seen with Sir Ian McKellen and (the late great)Pete Postlethwaite–comparing portrayals of the Fool, the struggle to dramatize Cordeila (overheard: “I always judge a Lear production on how the gouging out of the eyes goes….”). In the moment of the play, I was newly alert to how full immersion in the perspective of other humans in turmoil can transform. For three hours I lived through Lear’s love test, rejection of those who loved him, rejected by those who flattered him, loss of his recognition of his self, madness, storm, rescue and collapse. I have not (yet) been thrown out onto a blasted heath and exposed to be reborn–but I can find within my own experience echoes of emotional drama I witnessed in the gorgeous language and images of despair that construct King Lear. The viewing of this tragedy and the projected experience of it onto one’s own life order opens perception, galvanizes and refreshes the muscles we need to weather the storms of being alive and aware.
In the Salon– whether I am looking at a work of literature for the first or 18th time, I find myself responding anew to the ideas with each meeting. The discussions in the Salon, the views of others and the questions that drive us further into the work help to make the engagement of reading an embodied performance. I hope to meet you in the pages.
COMING SALONS *register now*
THE BEAR by William Faulkner Salon Intensive One Day Meeting October 4th
PARADISE LOST by John Milton Five-week study starting October 9th
Salons coming in London: Bleak House, Howards End, The Aeneid, one meeting poetry studies and The Sound and The Fury…email me requests and interest.
