Plot Holes - King Lear and other plays

I once read (somewhere) that the Fool and Cordelia were originally written for the same actor to play both roles, so the 'my poor fool is hang'd' line covers both.

Hamlet - Ophelia's leisurely, lengthily reported drowning - does no-one think to pull the poor girl out?

Don’t ya just love this thread? What about Othello, eh? Only just arrived but Cassius has been visiting his gal for over a week. It is the drama of the moment isn’t it? It works on stage so well.
I’ve always gone with the fool/Cordelia doubling idea so Sh just has to log him off as it were. And the Fool isn’t needed once Lear goes mad and sees the light...again as it were.
As for giving away his kingdom, I think that the English were obsessed with the idea of succession. Maybe still are. It was essential to have a clear uncontested succession to Elizabeth and Sh is showing what it is like when this doesn’t happen, when things are 'topsey - turvey, handy dandy' upside down and not the natural order of things. The French have a different succession for property as did the Holy Roman Empire. The great empire of Charlemagne was totally dismantled when he passed it on in a divided form to his sons. So division in English eyes is bad. Or was bad... a three bedroomed terrace in inner London has to be sold now so that all the kids can benefit. But the aristocracy still pass on to the eldest SON. You get my drift.

I’ve always had same feeling about Ophelia! More recent productions have had the Claudius regime do her in so maybe Sh is suggesting that she was driven to this and you can imagine armed guards stopping people getting to her. I’m getting carried away here now but a film version set in a modern day dictatorship.......?

The character of King Lear and his motivations is an interesting one for me, because its because of that vagueness that makes it a challenge for me to sympathise with him. Yes, no one should be treated the way he is from the point he is locked out in the heath right to the end. But even as he dies the part of me thinking "you did kind of bring this on yourself"

Only Derek Jacobi managed to overcome this problem for me. His King Lear was the only one I cried for at the end.

The way Lear acts after he gives away a lot of his power like he is still important to the detriment of his daughters makes me side with them (until they start locking people outside and gouging out eyes). And all of this is set off by division of the kingdom that is not implicitly explained.

It makes me want to know more about the rule of Lear before the play. Surely his rule was opposed a couple of times? His style of kingship is based around absolute kingship, expressed by the Divine Right of Kings, where the ruler answers to no one but the gods. Notable rulers that followed this idea was Richard II and Charles I, and look where that got them in the end. You wonder how Lear managed to live to an old age.

Especially when you look at Goneril and Regan. You'd think that the way Lear acted as a king and father made them the way they are.

I really want to see a King Lear that brings in the death of the queen aspect to the beginning. It would bring another level to how the characters act.

Another show that I wish there was plot is Cats the Musical (I know the musical that takes what story there is in the poems), particularly Grizabella's backstory. I know there's hints in the songs, but when the musical is putting so much emphasis on her trying to be accepted by the other cats again for vague reasons, it makes the cats we've been following the whole time (well the proud adults anyway) look very selfish.

I don't need things spelt out but when you're making a hoopla about a particular plot point or character, give me good reasons to care about them.

I thought the abuse angle in the Pryce Lear was a very fresh take on the story.

The Russell Beale Lear beat his Fool to death IIRC.

The McKellen Lear - I didn't think the Fool's demise was overdone, it worked for me.

You say "plot holes", I say "gaps that the cast and director can use to their advantage to place their own stamp on the play". If a plot hole in a book is aggravating, it's the writer's fault, but if there's one in a play that's annoying, that's on the production itself.

Acting choices can also bring up pot holes.

It's a fine line for an actress playing Regan to jump from shutting her raving father out to plucking out someone's eyeballs. One moment she's a reasonable person the next she's a maniacal monster

Current scholarship suggests what we have is Middleton’s version of a Shakespeare original. It is a fact the play is suspiciously short