Director’s Notes: The trial scene in the film King Lear.

Watch “the trial scene” – part of Episode 9.  

It has taken Lear and the others 20 minutes to travel through the storm to the hut.  Throughout that trek Lear’s mind is in constant flux.  More and more he is losing any sense of time and place.  However he always retains his awareness of being king and the terrible wrongs done him by Goneril and Regan.

Eric Michael Smith, Alexander Barnett

Invariably this scene is staged as three characters running amok, each in his own chaotic world, spewing nonsense and mindlessness for no real purpose but simply to be a chorus to Lear’s madness.  No.

Peter Holdway, Alexander Barnett

This scene marks the first time Lear hallucinates.  At the beginning of the scene his further mental decline is evident.  His fascination with Edgar is gone.  When Lear first sees Edgar in the storm his mind cracked and he was overwhelmed by guilt and empathy.  But here that is gone.  It is the second of three very different stages in his mental deterioration.  Now he is driven by vindictiveness and his focus is entirely on revenge.  In his mind everything he loved has turned against him, even his adoring dogs.  Betrayal overwhelms him.

Alexander Barnett

Two overwhelming desires drive Lear: first, he must put Goneril and Regan on trial and have them judged and punished for what they’ve done to him and second, to discover -- what is the cause in nature that makes them so brutal?  What is the secret?  That is the same question Shakespeare asks in all of his great tragedies.

Aaron Strand

Fool is literally freezing to death, frantically trying to distract himself from his physical deterioration and involuntary shivering.  Weak as he is he tries to keep moving.  His speaking is stammered and slurred.  He is doomed but doesn’t know it, although his body does.  In the heath scenes and here in the trial scene we discover the core of his character.  In these scenes, despite the frightening and brutal environment, he speaks and acts exactly as he does in the court scenes.  In other words, what you see is what you get.  He doesn’t act the court jester: he is the court jester.  He has no control over what he says and does.

Kent is desperate to calm and soothe Lear and persuade him to rest.  He watches intently, hovering protectively over Lear, trying to contain him.  There is no wasted movement.

Peter Holdway, Alexander Barnett, Eric Michael Smith

Edgar, Lear’s “companion in arms,” is his interventionist, his buffer, his conductor.  He physically follows the action, ready to move in and intervene if necessary, constantly attempting to calm, humor and placate Lear.  Everything Edgar does is determined by Lear’s actions.  He knows that if Lear’s hysteria becomes uncontrollable and he bolts, it will arouse the castle and he, Lear and Gloucester will all be endangered.  By the end of the scene he is so distressed by Lear’s condition that he is barely able to continue his impersonation.

Rather than chaotic—a superficial and irrelevant interpretation of this scene—it is sharp, focused and purposeful.