Out, Vile Jelly!

Recently, I began reading William Shakespeare's famous tragedy, King Lear. Compounding this is the fact that recently, I have been hanging out with the Gamut crowd, and having a totally super awesome time doing so. And I am taking a Shakespeare course (hence why I am reading King Lear). Therefore, it is pretty safe to say that I have been itching to do some Shakespeare for a while now. And I have realized that one of the Shakespearean roles I would absolutely love to play is the Duke of Cornwall in King Lear.

My reasons are many. I think it would be interesting to play a violent sociopath, which I certainly believe the Duke of Cornwall is. I have all these little ideas about Cornwall. I think he is a man who never smiles, who finds few things funny, and the things he does find funny, no one else does. I believe him to be a most antisocial fellow, who, while taking great pleasure in using people for his own ends, remains cold and calculating about it. He is the sort of person around whom you tread very carefully, for if you say the wrong thing, he will put out your eyes. Consider the scene where Cornwall blinds Gloucester. Cornwall has already gotten the information he needs; there is no cause to blind Gloucester other than for the hell of it.

Though his role is relatively small, his characterization is, in my opinion, very rich. And some day, I will hopefully have the opportunity to take these little ideas out of my head and put them in a totally super awesome performance.

There is a violent sociopath in All's Well That Ends Well, right?