The Fool's Final Exit

I’ve been thinking some more about the Fool’s untimely exit from the play. In my version of the script, his final appearance coincides with the end of the first act. I toyed with the idea of using him somehow to herald in the intermission—maybe have him lead the audience out into the lobby, and then entertain them while they had their drinks. He is sort of meta-theatrical, as I’ve observed, so it wouldn’t be completely out of line.

But it didn’t really appeal to me. I kept thinking about what the Fool has been up to, and where he might be expected to go next. Previous productions have found all sorts of creative ways to dispose of the Fool: in 1982, for example, the RSC production had Lear stab him in a violent fit during the “trial” scene. Often, he hangs himself, or else is found hanged (due to an ambiguous line of Lear’s near the end of the play, “And my poor fool is hanged”).

If I were going to kill the Fool off, I’d rather do it with a whimper, not with a bang. I’d rather see him contract pneumonia from his time out in the storm. He has very little to say while they’re in the hovel, and his last line (“And I’ll go to bed at noon”) suggests he has some foreknowledge of his own death. That could be more meta-theatrical prophecy, but it could also be a frail, sick man feeling the fever come over him. One can imagine the end of the scene: Kent and Gloster helping Lear out of the hovel, Edgar trailing behind, soliloquizing...and then everyone forgetting about the poor Fool, who remains by the fire, too weak to move, as the lights go down.

Okay...but consider the content of Edgar’s soliloquy:

How light and portable my pain seems now,
When that which makes me bend makes the king bow.
When we see our own betters bearing woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who suffers solo, suffers most in the mind,
Leaving free acts and happy shows behind.
But when our grief has mates and fellowship,
Then does the mind much suffering o’erskip.
Whate’er befalls tonight, safe ‘scape the king!

His concern is focused on Lear, so it makes sense that he might overlook the Fool. But the speech is about charity. It would be a terribly ironic gesture to have Edgar make this marvellous discovery about human compassion, and then walk offstage and leave a dying man behind.

So why can’t he help him? Say the Fool is upstage shivering and swooning as Edgar delivers his speech to the audience. When he’s done, he goes to exit, and we wince as we notice what he’s overlooked. But then he pauses, turns, and goes back to help the Fool along. That would be a nice, simple gesture, wouldn’t it? Somebody—one person in this godforsaken play—has learned to look out for the little guy.