New Ways of Looking at <span class='italic'>Lear</span>: Changing Relationships between Theatre, Screen and Audience in Live Broadcasts of <span class='italic'>King Lear</span> (2011–2016)

doi:10.1017/9781108589727.005

Chapter 5 - New Ways of Looking at Lear: Changing Relationships between Theatre, Screen and Audience in Live Broadcasts of King Lear (2011–2016)

from Part II - Lear en Abyme: Metatheatre and the Screen

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 September 2019

Rachael Nicholas

Edited by

Victoria Bladen ,

Sarah Hatchuel and

Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin

Show author details

Victoria Bladen: Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Sarah Hatchuel: Affiliation:
Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier
Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin: Affiliation:
Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Since the National Theatre launched its NT Live scheme in 2009, three large-scale productions of King Lear have been broadcast live from theatre auditoriums to cinema screens around the world: NT Live’s 2011 collaboration with the Donmar Warehouse, directed by Michael Grandage, their 2014 production, directed by Sam Mendes, and, most recently, a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company, directed by Gregory Doran and broadcast in October 2016. Smaller companies have also begun experimenting with live streaming their theatre online, including the 1623 Theatre Company’s King Lear adaptation, Lear/Cordelia, which was live streamed in November 2016. This chapter examines this corpus of live broadcast Lears, drawing on close analysis of the filmed productions and on critical and public responses in order to think through the specific challenges of producing King Lear for live broadcast, as well as the particular opportunities that arise when the play is mediated in this way. Considering the ways in which live broadcast distribution methods create new layers of meaning, the chapter explores how the rhetoric of ‘accessibility’ becomes part of these productions, questioning how the cinema broadcasts create a kind of access that implies a hierarchy of ways of experiencing King Lear – a hierarchy that places live, unadapted, stage productions firmly at the top.

Keywords

King Lear Live production theatre film broadcast

Type: Chapter
Information: Shakespeare on Screen: King Lear , pp. 78 - 92

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108589727.005 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Aebischer, P., Shakespeare’s Violated Bodies: Stage and Screen Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).Google Scholar

Cowie, A., ‘King Lear @ Royal Shakespeare Theatre’, Reviewing Shakespeare, n.d.: http://bloggingshakespeare.com/reviewing-shakespeare/king-lear-rsc-royal-shakespeare-theatre-stratford-upon-avon-england-2016/ (accessed 21 December 2017).Google Scholar

Croall, J., Performing King Lear: Gielgud to Russell Beale (London: Bloomsbury, 2015).Google Scholar

Friedman, M. D., ‘The Shakespeare Cinemacast: Coriolanus’, Shakespeare Quarterly 67.4 (2016): 457–80.CrossRef Google Scholar

Griggs, Y., Screen Adaptations: Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’: the Relationship between Text and Film (London: Methuen Drama, 2009).Google Scholar

Kirwan, P., ‘King Lear (Donmar/NT Live) @ Warwick Arts Centre Cinema’ The Bardathon, 4 February 2011: http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/bardathon/2011/02/04/king-lear-donmarnt-live-warwick-arts-centre-cinema/ (accessed 21 December 2017).Google Scholar

‘King Lear (National Theatre/NT Live) @ The Broadway, Nottingham’, The Bardathon, 2 May 2014: http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/bardathon/2014/05/02/king-lear-national-theatrent-live-the-broadway-nottingham/ (accessed 21 December 2017).Google Scholar

Nicholas, R., ‘Understanding “New” Encounters with Shakespeare: Hybrid Media and Emerging Audience Behaviours’, in Aebischer, P., Greenhalgh, S. and Osborne, L. E. (eds.), Shakespeare and the ‘Live’ Theatre Broadcast Experience (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 77–92.Google Scholar

‘Filmography’, in Aebischer, P., Greenhalgh, S. and Osborne, L. E. (eds.), Shakespeare and the ‘Live’ Theatre Broadcast Experience (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 227–42.Google Scholar

Purcell, S., ‘King Lear Performed by the Donmar Warehouse (Review)’, Shakespeare Bulletin 32.2 (2014): 264–6.CrossRef Google Scholar

Reidy, B. K., Schutt, B., Abramson, D. and Durski, A., ‘From Live-to-Digital: Understanding the Impact of Digital Developments in Theatre on Audiences, Production and Distribution’, Arts Council England, 11 October 2016: www.artscouncil.org.uk/publication/live-digital (accessed 30 June 2017).Google Scholar

Rogers, J., ‘Talawa and Black Theatre Live: “Creating the Ira Aldridges That Are Remembered” – Live Theatre Broadcast and the Historical Record’, in Aebischer, P., Greenhalgh, S. and Osborne, L. E. (eds.), Shakespeare and the ‘Live’ Theatre Broadcast Experience (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 147–59.Google Scholar

Stone, A., ‘Not Making a Movie: the Livecasting of Shakespeare Stage Productions by the Royal National Theatre and The Royal Shakespeare Company’, Shakespeare Bulletin 34.4 (2016): 627–43.CrossRef Google Scholar

Wardle, J., ‘“Outside Broadcast”: Looking Backwards and Forwards, Live Theatre in the Cinema – NT and RSC Live’, Adaptation 7.2 (2014): 134–53.CrossRef Google Scholar

Wyver, J., ‘“All the Trimmings?”: the Transfer of Theatre to Television in Adaptations of Shakespeare Stagings’, Adaptation 7.2 (2014): 104–20.Google Scholar

‘Screening the RSC Stage: the 2014 Live from Stratford-upon-Avon Cinema Broadcasts’, Shakespeare 11.3 (2015): 286–302.Google Scholar