Plot Overview

Lear, the aging king of Britain, decides to step down from the throne and divide his kingdom evenly among his three daughters. First, however, he puts his daughters through a test, asking each to tell him how much she loves him. Goneril and Regan, Lear’s older daughters, give their father flattering answers. But Cordelia, Lear’s youngest and favorite daughter, remains silent, saying that she has no words to describe how much she loves her father. Lear flies into a rage and disowns Cordelia. The king of France, who has courted Cordelia, says that he still wants to marry her even without her land, and she accompanies him to France without her father’s blessing.

Lear quickly learns that he made a bad decision. Goneril and Regan swiftly begin to undermine the little authority that Lear still holds. Unable to believe that his beloved daughters are betraying him, Lear slowly goes insane. He flees his daughters’ houses to wander on a heath during a great thunderstorm, accompanied by his Fool and by Kent, a loyal nobleman in disguise.

Meanwhile, an elderly nobleman named Gloucester also experiences family problems. His illegitimate son, Edmund, tricks him into believing that his legitimate son, Edgar, is trying to kill him. Fleeing the manhunt that his father has set for him, Edgar disguises himself as a crazy beggar and calls himself “Poor Tom.” Like Lear, he heads out onto the heath.

When the loyal Gloucester realizes that Lear’s daughters have turned against their father, he decides to help Lear in spite of the danger. Regan and her husband, Cornwall, discover him helping Lear, accuse him of treason, blind him, and turn him out to wander the countryside. He ends up being led by his disguised son, Edgar, toward the city of Dover, where Lear has also been brought.

In Dover, a French army lands as part of an invasion led by Cordelia in an effort to save her father. Edmund apparently becomes romantically entangled with both Regan and Goneril, whose husband, Albany, is increasingly sympathetic to Lear’s cause. Goneril and Edmund conspire to kill Albany.

The despairing Gloucester tries to commit suicide, but Edgar saves him by pulling the strange trick of leading him off an imaginary cliff. Meanwhile, the English troops reach Dover, and the English, led by Edmund, defeat the Cordelia-led French. Lear and Cordelia are captured. In the climactic scene, Edgar duels with and kills Edmund; we learn of the death of Gloucester; Goneril poisons Regan out of jealousy over Edmund and then kills herself when her treachery is revealed to Albany; Edmund’s betrayal of Cordelia leads to her needless execution in prison; and Lear finally dies out of grief at Cordelia’s passing. Albany, Edgar, and the elderly Kent are left to take care of the country under a cloud of sorrow and regret.

SUMMARISED:

Themes of the play cover greed, betrayal, lust for power, and cruelty. The story of King Lear, an aging monarch who is headstrong old man who is blind to his weaknesses, decides to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters, according to which one recites the best declaration of love. Goneril and Regan who are the selfish daughters of Lear who pretend to love him but later treat him cruelly. Cordelia who is the loyal and unselfish daughter. King Lear disowns Cordelia after confusing her honesty with insolence. The end of the play ends in death by various methods including poison and suicide. Cordelia dies and King Lear, now a broken man, also dies.

Goneril - character description

Goneril -  Lear’s ruthless oldest daughter and the wife of the duke of Albany. Goneril is jealous, treacherous, and amoral. Shakespeare’s audience would have been particularly shocked at Goneril’s aggressiveness, a quality that it would not have expected in a female character. She challenges Lear’s authority, boldly initiates an affair with Edmund, and wrests military power away from her husband.

I really like playing Goneril because of her determination of cruelty and selfishness. She is a really cognitive, twisted and interesting character to play that is viciously aggressive and elusive by no means to get what she wants in the end.

Precious little Talent - More Info

Taking Joey as example we hear her bemoan the lack of jobs after graduating with a First class degree, whilst her mother falls for a Muslim man and begins to wear a head scarf. She’s not spoken to her father for years, and desperately wants to find who she is whilst denouncing the American ‘I have a dream’ way of life. Hickson doesn’t explore the recline in graduate-jobs, nor differing cultural relationships. She hints at the bigger story, but this doesn’t bring depth to the characters, it only makes them more roughly defined. -  Review: A younger Theatre
http://www.ayoungertheatre.com/review-precious-little-talent-ella-hickson-trafalgar-studios/

Vera Vera Vera - Scene 4

'Squires focuses on the aftermath of the shooting of a young Kentish soldier, Bobby, while on patrol in Helmand province. He ostensibly died a hero but, on the day of his funeral, we see his siblings and best friend bitterly arguing about the real Bobby. According to his drug-dealer brother Danny, he was a total wimp who, in civilian life, wouldn't even defend his sister Emily; and Emily herself, although dressed to the nines to pay a TV tribute to Bobby, admits she hasn't the vaguest idea why he died or what he was fighting for. Interwoven with this bilious episode are three scenes, set a few months later, between Bobby's 16-year-old cousin Charlie, and her friend Sammy, suggesting that, if the concept of heroism survives, it is on the personal rather than the public level.' - The stage

The political and time context doesn't appeal to me and I had doubts in the first place to this monologue therefore I've decided not to do it.

Debris By Dennis Kelly - The last Chicken

I decided not to do this one because I found I didn't like the context after researching the play.

'A one-act play where a brother and sister try to make sense of their dysfunctional childhood. The pair lie about their past creating new elaborate past stories, the central narrative is of the brother, Michael, who finds a baby who he names Debris trying to keep him a secret and alive from his alcoholic father confiding only in Michelle his sister who is fascinated with their mother's death and gives several contradicting stories of how she died.'

It doesn't appeal to me and therefore I can't act it as well

Precious little Talent

Joey is a young English law graduate, pretty and privileged, who bought into the idea that if she was a good girl who worked hard, went to the right university and got a good degree, the rest of her life would be handed to her on a plate. But the recession has put paid to that. Now, without a job, Joey has fled to New York to be with her academic father George (John McColl) for Christmas. But George's future is crumbling, and he is reliant on the help of Sam (Simon Ginty), a good-natured 19-year-old who is imbued with a sunny American optimism in the wake of Obama's election victory.