A Stick-Figure King Lear: Act 5, Scene 3

The Story So Far: After the extremely exciting and not-at-all anticlimactic Battle of Dover, Lear and Cordelia have been captured by Edmund. 

I would like to note that the followed pages were scripted, drawn and inked while under the influence of jet-lag. It's kind of like working under the influence of alcohol, but with less flights of drunken creativity and more staring blankly at pieces of paper wondering why, exactly, you have chosen to remain conscious at this particular moment. 

After spending most of the play dithering and hedging his bets, Albany finally starts to show some backbone in this scene. Not a lot, granted, given that he's basically just following Edgar's instructions, but still....

Please don't ask me why Edgar is wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask. I don't have an answer.

Just a reminder... Goneril and Regan's story unfolds like this:

  1. Goneril and Regan divide the kingdom between themselves.

  2. Goneril and Regan join forces to resist will of unstable, domineering father.

  3. Goneril and Regan both fall in love with the same man.

  4. Goneril poisons Regan and stabs herself to death.

As the popular saying goes... "well, that escalated quickly."

I know I didn't do justice to Lear's final scene. That is because (a) I'm jet-lagged, and (b) it's actually so horrible that I have a hard time coming up with jokes for it. A parent losing their child is pretty much as horrible as things can ever get, and Lear's lamentations over the body of Cordelia are heart-breaking, even if you are of the mindset that Lear is a stupid old man who brought all this on himself.

So, Kent goes off, presumably to kill himself, leaving poor old Edgar and Albany standing around, surrounded by bodies. Aaaaaaaand curtain. Yay?

Anyways, tune in again on Monday, when I'll wrap up the entire play in a single page and provide you with the Death/Marriage counts. 

A Stick-Figure King Lear: Act 5, Scene 2

The Story So Far: After much talking, the forces of Cordelia and the forces of Edmund and Albany are ready to finally fight it out at Dover! THIS IS IT, GUYS! THIS IS THE BIG BATTLE OF THE PLAY!

Well.... that was a bit disappointing.

OK, I recognize that the battle isn't the big thing in this play, unlike in Henry V. But still! After all this talk of armies gathering at Dover, all we get is Gloucester sitting around on an empty stage, probably listening to piped-in battle sound effects, waiting for Edgar to run on and tell him he's missed it, it was a great battle, and they lost.

Tune in again on Wednesday for the big finale! What this scene lacks in content and excitement, the next scene makes up for in SPADES. It's got EVERYTHING. Except a guy getting his eyes gouged out. That's a once-in-a-play event. Sorry.

A Stick-Figure King Lear: Act 5, Scene 1

The Story So Far: Thanks to Kent, King Lear has been reunited with his daughter Cordelia, and seems to be regaining his wits. Cordelia has brought an army over from France, determined to wrest control of Britain away from her horrible elder sisters and restore her father to the throne. Unfortunately for her, Goneril, Regan, and their new toyboy, Edmund, have very different ideas.

Anyways, this is an interesting little scene. For one thing, the romantic rivalry between Goneril and Regan really rears its ugly head here, with both of them fixated on Edmund. Edmund's brother Edgar, meanwhile, is attempting to bring down Edmund by the most circuitous means possible. Why doesn't he just tell Albany to read the letter immediately and arrest Goneril and Edmund before the battle even begins? It would solve a lot of problems. If I've missed a cunning plot trick here, let me know in the comments.

Tune in on Monday, when the long-awaited BIG BATTLE happens! No, don't get your hopes up. It's incredibly anticlimactic.

A Stick-Figure King Lear: Act 4, Scene 6

The Story So Far: The increasingly mad King Lear, accompanied by Kent, has finally made it to Dover, where he is taken in by his daughter Cordelia. A bunch of other people are coming to Dover too, with an army, but that doesn't matter at the moment. 

So, it turns out all that King Lear needed to recover from his madness was a good sleep. He wakes up in a much more rational frame of mind, and even acknowledges that he was a total ass to Cordelia in the first scene. Cordelia, being the perfect little goody-two-shoes that she is, insists he has nothing to apologize for. 

He totally does, though.

Tune in on Wednesday, when we'll have a little break from King Lear before Act 5 barrels down upon us like an avalanche of depression.

A Stick-Figure King Lear: Act 4, Scene 5

The Story So Far:  Cordelia and her army have landed in Dover. Kent has escorted King Lear to Dover, but has lost him somewhere on the way. Edgar is scoring his suicidal and blinded father, Gloucester, to Dover. Edmund and Albany are preparing to march the British armies to Dover. It's all about Dover. 

Edgar is either the world's worst psychotherapist or the world's best psychotherapist. On the one hand, I'm pretty sure that tricking your patient into thinking he's jumping off the Cliffs of Dover isn't a widely-accepted form of treating depression. On the other hand, it does seem to cure Gloucester's suicidal desire, so who am I to criticize? 

Gloucester falling off the cliff presents a real staging dilemma. The sight of someone falling flat on his face is inherently amusing, but the pathos of Gloucester's suicide attempt is anything but. I tend to laugh at this part, but your mileage may vary. Leave a note in the comments if you've seen a particularly memorable Gloucester-fall!

Lear is full-on nuts in this scene. To Freud's presumed delight, he spends a good part of this scene raving about sex and female genitalia. However, Gloucester's heart-breaking reaction to Lear's ravings should, if done properly, really highlight the awful transformation that Lear has undergone. 

That said, Lear says some pretty funny things in this scene, mostly at poor old Gloucester's expense.

Poor old Oswald. If you're playing the "Oswald Drinking Game", take two drinks: one for his attempted letter delivery and one for his getting beaten up a final time. Note Oswald's fanatical devotion to his duty. Even when mortally wounded, his first thought is "Someone has to deliver this letter! The mail must get through!" Unfortunately he gives the letter to the one person in the world most likely not to deliver the letter. 

Stop by again on Monday as we wrap up Act 4. Act 3 ended with one of the most horrific acts of violence in the Shakespearean canon. Act 4 ends with one of its most touching reconciliation scenes... if you're into that kind of thing. 

A Stick-Figure King Lear: Act 4, Scene 4

The Story So Far: Everybody is still going to Dover. They're taking their sweet time about it, but they're going. Meanwhile, romantic troubles are brewing between Goneril and Regan. Goneril has developed the hots for Edmund and sends trusty Oswald after him with a letter. However, the recently-widowed Regan has other ideas...

Oswald tries to deliver a letter, but fails. If you're playing the "Oswald Drinking Game", take a drink. Oswald likes his letters.

Regan, meanwhile, has also fallen prey to Edmund's apparently irresistible sex appeal, and is planning to marry him even before her dead husband, the ex-Duke of Cornwall, is cold in the ground. This is not going to end well. 

Tune in again on Friday, when people actually start arriving in Dover!