beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

I watched King Lear, as recorded off More 4 the other night. And not totally because of the Doctor Who connection. Although watching 7 play the spoons was a tad distracting.

I'm kind of glad we don't got to study this one.
It's a bit long.
I mean, Hamlet is long, but it never felt long.
This one?
Sloooooow and long.

And they spend a lot of time with everyone being mad. Which is all very well, but then they make even less sense than usual. At least when Hamelt or Ophelia are mad they've got people to bounce off and story to make. King Lear seems to involve a lot of madmen talking to each other about stuff they make sound mad, while very little happens.
And then there's the thing where they'll say something with memorable phrasing and make some remark worth the sitting there to hear, but then they'll say it again, with very slightly different phrasing, and riff on it for a while, and... *sigh*

Also when everyone is absolutely vile except the one who is quite difficult to understand due to the being completely nuts then it's difficult to stay involved. I mean the charismatic bastard was the most interesting one, even though... no, partly because he sets out to be evil. Everyone else just sort of bounces along having things go horribly wrong, mostly because they hate each other. He sets out to get power and respect and stuff like that, and it works, and then it goes horribly wrong. Which is a bit more interesting.

I think we're supposed to hate the daughters that do flattery and try and get new husband and like the daughter that doesn't do flattery and comes back to die with her father. I'm not sure I do. The wicked ones at least seemed to be getting on with steering their own lives. But no, they were vile and enjoyed all the killing and liked it when that guy got his eyes put out, so, no liking them.

There's lots of mess and nasty in this story. People hurting themselves, people hurting each other, suicide both attempted and actual, misery and madness all over the place.

I can see how it's interesting, but I can't see me watching it again any time soon.


There's a couple other plays recorded and waiting to be watched. Reckon I'll wait some.
And watch something a bit more optimistic while waiting.
'Everybody dies' is all very dramatic in its way, but... it feels like a cop out, really, like when Babylon 5 has that speech about how we count history by wars because the peace is far more complicated. 'Everybody dies' is the easy ending, the complicated way involves figuring out how to live.

... This is not me telling Shakespeare how to write.
I've just got some preferences in stories. I guess they suit TV more than films or one off plays. On TV it's much more rare to have everybody die, on account of it's a bugger to pick up the story next week once it has happened.