Playing King Lear: Donald Sinden talks to J. W. R. Meadowcroft

Summary

JWRM. It's eighteen months since I first heard that you were rejoining the Royal Shakespeare Company to play Benedick and King Lear. I particularly wanted to see your Lear because I've always admired the things that you've done, and the play is a favourite of mine. Now that I've finally seen it during the Aldwych run, I find that the production poses a number of questions for me as an academic. But before we get down to specifics, perhaps you'd tell me how you go about preparing a Shakespeare role, one that you haven't previously done.

DS. Well, you mustn't take this personally, Bob, but I never read any authorities; and the first thing I do is go through my text and cross out all stage directions.

JWRM. What text do you use?

DS. For Lear we used — not because of its value as a text-we used the New Penguin Shakespeare, merely because of its size.

JWRM. I think it's a very good text.