Whom to Cast?

Starting to think about casting some more. It’s still almost a month before auditions, but I can’t help myself. I’m at the point now where it’s almost impossible to think about the show in abstract terms. I need images of costumes, sets, and faces to fill in the blanks.

How similar or dissimilar should the three sisters be? Their characters all contain reflections or aspects of Lear’s own: Goneril’s imperious authority, Regan’s passion, and Cordelia’s stubbornness and plain-spokenness. But should they resemble him physically? Should they resemble each other? I don’t want Goneril and Regan to suggest “evil step-sisters” to the audience as soon as they walk on stage. Like Lear, they all need the potential to become heroes or villains.

How young should Cordelia be? That’s a tough one...the temptation is to cast her very young, to make her appear fragile and innocent at the outset. It would also make her arranged marriage seem more unacceptable to a modern audience, and thus help to build sympathy for her. But by the end of the play, the chick is commanding armies—possibly even fighting alongside them. She either she needs to have a bit of maturity to start with, or else she needs to grow up in an awful hurry.

For that matter: how old is Lear? In one line (which I’ve cut), he claims he’s “four score and upward, not an hour more nor less.” That’s pretty specific (so specific, you have to doubt its accuracy). But can an eighty-year-old actor really handle a part as strenuous as Lear? Advanced age helps us to accept Lear’s madness, but it weakens his authority in a lot of respects.

I wouldn’t mind casting Gloster as a bit older than Lear, since his authority (over his household) seems more precarious, as if he’s taken it for granted for so long that it naturally slipped away from him. Then it makes sense that, whereas Gloster has nearly run out of steam by Act Four, Lear is still able to spring about in the daisies, and outrun a troop of soldiers (that’s always been a weird moment for me).

Edgar and Edmund can be younger, of course, but what about Kent? A man of 30 or 40 seems about right, but it would also work to show a bit of grey in his hair, too. I guess, when you get right down to it, the play is about a very strict generational divide, so it makes sense to clarify that through the casting. That means Lear, Gloster, Kent and all the Knights have to suggest that they’re past mid-life, whereas Goneril, Regan, Edmund, Edgar and Oswald can all be younger—spring chickens waiting to inherit the coop.

And what about the Fool? I have no bloody idea.