Director's Notes King Lear Film Episode 13 Act 4, Scene 7

Watch the reconciliation scene on YouTube.

             Since arriving at the French camp Kent has told Cordelia of all the events that led to Lear’s madness.  She is amazed and horrified by his story.  Finally, as he finishes, Cordelia, overwhelmed with gratitude and awe for Kent’s heroism, devotion and loyalty, tries to find the words to convey her appreciation.

            The reconciliation scene is intensely personal.  Cordelia approaches the tent fraught with apprehension, reluctance and uncertainty. How will he respond to her?  Forgiving?  Vengeful? She has not seen him since he banished her. 

         As he watches the touching scene from a distance, the Doctor's own struggle highlights how deeply felt this moment is for him.  He is a very competent and compassionate man who knows this family well and has done much to care for Lear.  He wants to urge the hesitant Cordelia to her father’s side for both of their sake, but must also respect her status as Queen. 

  

Cordelia does not come with a prepared apology.  Instead she reacts spontaneously to the horror of finding her father so changed and weakened.  

Despite having heard reports of Lear’s deterioration, nothing can prepare Cordelia for the agonizing sight of her father so far fallen from the man she has known her whole life.  Her heart breaks at it, yet pathos and sentimentality must not predominate.   

  

Her defensiveness and awkwardness are broken down and forgotten, yet underlying everything is her deep feeling of guilt, her awareness that she might have prevented this had she responded differently, her disbelief that Goneril and Regan meant to destroy him.  Her fear now is that he may be damaged permanently.

When Lear awakens he knows who he is but neither where nor in what condition nor how he got there.  He is totally disoriented.  Except for perhaps a few very blurred fragments, Lear remembers nothing of what happened since he discovered Edgar on the heath.  He is vividly aware of a huge, frightening gap in his memory.  The possibility of Lear’s relapse into madness is latent throughout the scene.  The audience should not know from the start how the scene is going to end.  There should be no sense of peace and tranquility but of mystery, uncertainty and unpredictability.

Lear, still physically and mentally infirm, is suffused with pain, remorse and guilt for his near total past disregard of the pain and suffering of others that he could have eased or even prevented.  The revelations that caused him such agony have also provided him the self-awareness he lacked for so long.  That process of  self-discovery begins on the heath when he says to Fool “How dost my boy?  Art cold?”

 

When Lear sees Cordelia, he is suddenly certain and yet not … he stares, searching, searching.  He seems about to recognize Kent but falters again.  He cannot move beyond the sheer impossibility of what seems to be happening.

Lear now is afforded the opportunity that Gloucester so wished for at the beginning of the act: with tears of joy and guilt and heartbreak, he not only recognizes Cordelia but also accepts his own fault in his treatment of her.  With all the realization of his new knowledge of himself, he asks for her forgiveness.  There is brief respite in their reunion, but the urgency of their situation never abates.  While they have each other for the moment, battle is imminent, and if their side fails, they will lose everything.

  

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