KING LEAR: PERSONAL CONNECTIONS
The following stories reflect personal connections that cast members are making with themes from King Lear. By writing and sharing our stories, we seize an opportunity to exercise self-empathy, and compassion for others. We experience the play as more than mere entertainment. We read and perform the play as an anthem, a prayer, and a ritual that embraces and honors multiple dimensions of our shared humanity.
REJECTION
From the very beginning, the theme of rejection and its sometimes disastrous consequences pervades King Lear. Lear feels dismissed by his beloved daughter Cordelia, and deals with his pain by disowning her. Kent challenges Lear’s decision, which “nor Lear’s nature nor his place can bear,” and so Lear banishes Kent. Edmund has been treated as “less than” from birth - labeled a “bastard” by his father and “base” by others. The existential threat this poses to his identity provokes an earth-shattering response, as Edmund turns on his father and brother, and joins Goneril and Regan to wreak havoc on Lear’s kingdom. While we may not have experienced rejection in precisely these ways, we have all experienced rejection at a deep level. Here are some of the ways that this theme resonates with the cast of King Lear:
My biological father rejected me because I reminded him of my biological mother. Although I didn’t realize this until I had grown up and was in my late 20’s, he’d often take my sister out with him (he was a truck driver) while I’d be left at home. All my life, I wished that I had parents that loved and wanted me, but I never got it.
When I was 4 or 5 years old, my aunts would tell me that my biological father was in prison, and my mother’s husband didn’t want me around. I was sent to live with my mother’s brother. I feel like I have never had a true “home.” I have always felt like a stranger.
As a small child and a pre-teen, I never thought of my birth father’s denial as rejection. I was unable to see that because of a child’s dream of wanting to bond and develop a relationship. It was when I became an adult that I realized that I was emotionally invested and he was not.
The first rejection hit pretty hard. I thought I was a good candidate for the school, and that it was something that God had in mind for me. So it left me confused and depressed… When my application was declined a second time, I was given a general explanation as to why it might have been, but none of these reasons applied to me. So it felt a little more personal. The rejection, however, led to more opportunities here and now, that I have found to be fulfilling.
My father has always been the coolest, smoothest, and proudest man I’ve known. He carries himself with a regal air of justified respect, and self-assuredness. One day when I might have been like five or six years old, I recall playing in our living room with some of my cousins when the phone rang. We all knew to quiet down so my dad could answer the phone. As we sat quietly, I witnessed something that seemed strange or somewhat comical at the time. When my dad spoke, he didn’t seem like his cool, smooth self. He sounded like a white man to me. Later on I asked him why he sounded like that when he answered the phone. He explained to me that it was a potential job calling, and that he had to speak like that in order to help his chances of getting that job. That was my initial introduction to the way society seeks conformity, and rejects people who don’t fit the ideal.
Rejection for me is being in prison for over half of my adult life and not knowing if spending time locked away is enough to satisfy the opinion of the state. Rejection is when I attempt to reconcile with my adult children who are pained by my absence from their lives… I’m met with anger, frustration, and at times, disrespect. Rejection is knowing that I’m growing old and that my body/mind - but not yet my soul - is wasting away with the time.
My father, who we left back home, was the person I went to for everything as a kid.
“You fucked up my life!” Those words hit deep, and they hit hard. When I heard those words at 12 years old, and then again when I was 19, my mom’s English never sounded so perfect. Today, sitting here in prison, I hear her say, “I’m proud of you.”
It all started when I was three, probably just staring into my mother’s living room, pondering the black hair on my father’s away-facing head as he grunted and mumbled into the TV, completing another mission on his favorite video game… watching it peek out over the shoulder of the recliner.
She asked me the question, “What did you go to prison for?” When I told her, her whole demeanor changed. She froze for a moment, shocked, then said, “You need to leave now.”
A former friend keeps trying to be cordial and nice, trying to talk to me, asking my friends and people I associate with why I refuse to talk to him. I keep rejecting his hand in friendship. The trust and respect isn’t there for him.
What is the rejection of a father?
Is it the measure he sets before you?
Is it all the time he never even bothered?
Is it the life you lived that he neve knew?
Is it his face that wasn’t offered?
Mine is all of the above - hard to chew!
Trying to win my father’s favor was constantly sabotaged because of his feelings of inadequacy. My father was always a functioning alcoholic, and he used his addiction to justify most of his aberrant behavior. I excelled in two sports as a child: wrestling, and football. Twice when I was receiving awards for being MVP and Captain, he got up at the banquet and declared that playing sports was a waste of time, and that we should be trying to earn money. He was drunk… Throughout my childhood, my eldest sister and I became human punching bags during his drunken rages… My Dad will be 98 next month, and is suffering from dementia. He no longer drinks, and has a very selective memory… I call him every two weeks. He remembers who I am, and none of the bad from the past… I pray for my father every night, wishing him the best for whatever time he has left.
The following stories reflect personal connections that cast members are making with themes from King Lear. By writing and sharing our stories, we seize an opportunity to exercise self-empathy, and compassion for others. We experience the play as more than mere entertainment. We read and perform the play as an anthem, a prayer, and a ritual that embraces and honors multiple dimensions of our shared humanity.
REJECTION
From the very beginning, the theme of rejection and its sometimes disastrous consequences pervades King Lear. Lear feels dismissed by his beloved daughter Cordelia, and deals with his pain by disowning her. Kent challenges Lear’s decision, which “nor Lear’s nature nor his place can bear,” and so Lear banishes Kent. Edmund has been treated as “less than” from birth - labeled a “bastard” by his father and “base” by others. The existential threat this poses to his identity provokes an earth-shattering response, as Edmund turns on his father and brother, and joins Goneril and Regan to wreak havoc on Lear’s kingdom. While we may not have experienced rejection in precisely these ways, we have all experienced rejection at a deep level. Here are some of the ways that this theme resonates with the cast of King Lear:
My biological father rejected me because I reminded him of my biological mother. Although I didn’t realize this until I had grown up and was in my late 20’s, he’d often take my sister out with him (he was a truck driver) while I’d be left at home. All my life, I wished that I had parents that loved and wanted me, but I never got it.
When I was 4 or 5 years old, my aunts would tell me that my biological father was in prison, and my mother’s husband didn’t want me around. I was sent to live with my mother’s brother. I feel like I have never had a true “home.” I have always felt like a stranger.
As a small child and a pre-teen, I never thought of my birth father’s denial as rejection. I was unable to see that because of a child’s dream of wanting to bond and develop a relationship. It was when I became an adult that I realized that I was emotionally invested and he was not.
The first rejection hit pretty hard. I thought I was a good candidate for the school, and that it was something that God had in mind for me. So it left me confused and depressed… When my application was declined a second time, I was given a general explanation as to why it might have been, but none of these reasons applied to me. So it felt a little more personal. The rejection, however, led to more opportunities here and now, that I have found to be fulfilling.
My father has always been the coolest, smoothest, and proudest man I’ve known. He carries himself with a regal air of justified respect, and self-assuredness. One day when I might have been like five or six years old, I recall playing in our living room with some of my cousins when the phone rang. We all knew to quiet down so my dad could answer the phone. As we sat quietly, I witnessed something that seemed strange or somewhat comical at the time. When my dad spoke, he didn’t seem like his cool, smooth self. He sounded like a white man to me. Later on I asked him why he sounded like that when he answered the phone. He explained to me that it was a potential job calling, and that he had to speak like that in order to help his chances of getting that job. That was my initial introduction to the way society seeks conformity, and rejects people who don’t fit the ideal.
Rejection for me is being in prison for over half of my adult life and not knowing if spending time locked away is enough to satisfy the opinion of the state. Rejection is when I attempt to reconcile with my adult children who are pained by my absence from their lives… I’m met with anger, frustration, and at times, disrespect. Rejection is knowing that I’m growing old and that my body/mind - but not yet my soul - is wasting away with the time.
My father, who we left back home, was the person I went to for everything as a kid.
“You fucked up my life!” Those words hit deep, and they hit hard. When I heard those words at 12 years old, and then again when I was 19, my mom’s English never sounded so perfect. Today, sitting here in prison, I hear her say, “I’m proud of you.”
It all started when I was three, probably just staring into my mother’s living room, pondering the black hair on my father’s away-facing head as he grunted and mumbled into the TV, completing another mission on his favorite video game… watching it peek out over the shoulder of the recliner.
She asked me the question, “What did you go to prison for?” When I told her, her whole demeanor changed. She froze for a moment, shocked, then said, “You need to leave now.”
A former friend keeps trying to be cordial and nice, trying to talk to me, asking my friends and people I associate with why I refuse to talk to him. I keep rejecting his hand in friendship. The trust and respect isn’t there for him.
What is the rejection of a father?
Is it the measure he sets before you?
Is it all the time he never even bothered?
Is it the life you lived that he neve knew?
Is it his face that wasn’t offered?
Mine is all of the above - hard to chew!
Trying to win my father’s favor was constantly sabotaged because of his feelings of inadequacy. My father was always a functioning alcoholic, and he used his addiction to justify most of his aberrant behavior. I excelled in two sports as a child: wrestling, and football. Twice when I was receiving awards for being MVP and Captain, he got up at the banquet and declared that playing sports was a waste of time, and that we should be trying to earn money. He was drunk… Throughout my childhood, my eldest sister and I became human punching bags during his drunken rages… My Dad will be 98 next month, and is suffering from dementia. He no longer drinks, and has a very selective memory… I call him every two weeks. He remembers who I am, and none of the bad from the past… I pray for my father every night, wishing him the best for whatever time he has left.