Lesson Plan for: Dividing kingdoms, people, and minds: King Lear, Act 1

“‘I’ve always been an actor,’ said Mr. Taylor, who is 35 and serving five years for cocaine possession and battery. ‘We always have on our masks — life is a stage, really.’” The New York Times.

The Shakespeare Behind Bars program at Luther Luckett correctional facility in Kentucky, a medium-security all-male prison, “uses theater arts and creative thinking to increase communication skills, build self-esteem, and humanize and enrich the lives of those closed off behind bars,” according to its website. While Curt Tofteland’s program has spearheaded the effort of prison Shakespeare, other correctional facilities have used it as well. One such program, the Shakespeare Prison Project at Racine Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, staged a production of King Lear, which the New York Times covered in an article titled “In One Prison, Murder, Betrayal, and High Prose”; Racine area newspaper The Journal Times’ headline was “Lear Changed Lives of Actors.” Kevin Spears, who played Oswald at Racine Correctional, called it a “life-altering process. … (A)ll of us were changed for the better and we all have embraced that change, that is the measure and the blessing of what Doc Shailor brought to us,” according to the Journal Times.

What is it about Shakespeare’s plays in general–and Lear in particular–that appeals as especially powerful for prison productions? In this lesson plan, students will explore this question by close-reading King Lear, specifically act 1 (but other acts could be substituted due to instructor preference), examining contemporary cultural artifacts (listed below under References) such as documentaries, news coverage, and PR materials on Shakespeare prison programs’ websites to write their own takes on such productions using analytical (close reading of the language in these artifacts and in the play) and cultural studies type approaches to examine the universality of themes and characters that transcend boundaries of language and time.

According to Munson in Pacific Coast Philology (cited below), Lear’s “behavior, particularly in the opening, is characterized by excessive anger, what Kent calls ‘hideous rashness’ (1.1.152). … With reference to his already unbalanced mental state, Shakespeare positions Lear on the brink of madness from the very first. This paper contends that the humoral imbalance responsible for his madness can also be viewed as a subversion of sovereignty in the mind, dangerous in anyone, potentially deadly in a monarch.” Throughout her article, Munson examines the use of the term “sovereignty” then as now; for example, it usually appears not as “mental” sovereignty but as political sovereignty throughout Shakespeare’s entire body of work, and the term only appears as both a political and a psychological term Hamlet and Lear, the two plays most clearly about madness. Examining the theme of sovereignty–or personal control/responsibility over one’s actions–throughout Lear will yield especially fruitful insights through the perspective of people who have been incarcerated (like Lear later in the play) and divided from society, their families and perhaps their former selves. As Munson puts it: “Does Lear divide the kingdom because his is mad, or is his madness caused by the division?”

Overall goal/objective/theme

Students will introduce themselves to key themes and characterizations in Lear act 1 by analyzing materials available online of a prison production of King Lear in 2005. Students will use the genre of newswriting analysis/criticism in order to create empathy between themselves and the prisoners performing, examining what techniques the instructors at the facility used to introduce the prisoners to the play and Shakespeare. They will write their own analysis of the production and the importance of it for the people involved, and to see Shakespeare’s remaining psychological effects through the universality of themes that transcend language and time.

Methodology

Cultural studies, close reading, production analysis

What experience/knowledge do students already have? What is my strategy to accommodate all levels? (Audience)

This approach is ideal for high-level undergraduates who are English, journalism or communications majors as it will provide them an opportunity to work in the genre of newswriting about literature and current events. However, it is a valuable approach as well for non-English majors of lower-level Shakespeare classes, as it communicates the relevancy of Shakespeare to our culture and to themes present in families, communities and individual lives.

References

The Shakespeare Prison Project. The Shakespeare Prison Project at Racine Correctional Institution. Accessed 10 Oct. 2018.

Killackey, Brent. “Lear Changed Lives of Actors.” The Journal Times, 23 Aug. 2005.

Wilgoren, Jodi. “In One Prison, Murder, Betrayal, and High Prose.” New York Times, 29 Apr. 2005.

Munson, Rebecca. “The Marks of Sovereignty”: The Division of the Kingdom and the Division of the Mind in King Lear.” Pacific Coast Philology, vol. 46 (2011), pp. 13-27.

Shakespeare Behind Bars. Directed by Hank Rogerson, Philomath Films, 2005.

Beginning

How will I engage the learners: motivational strategy, hook, activation of prior knowledge?

Students will watch the documentary Shakespeare Behind Bars either as homework or together in class to orient themselves into the human perspective of Shakespeare as prison production. They will then read the above references and write a reflective essay about the documentary (which centers on the Tempest) and news materials centering on the Lear adaptation at Racine Correctional, synthesizing the inmats’ experience presented in the Tempest and Lear. What did these productions share in common? Did the individual inmates who performed Tempest and Lear experience similar take-aways? What are the implications for society of dividing kingdoms, as in Lear, and for dividing inmates away from the rest of society (for Tofteland in SBB documentary specifically; close-read and comment on his remarks).

Then, students will come together and share their reflective essays with each other, first in groups then as a class, with the option of brief presentations and/or reading their papers.

Middle

How does the lesson develop? How are new concepts/processes learned? By gradual empowerment? Modeled, shared or guided instruction?

Racine Correctional cast its Lear show collectively, conducting an hour-long “Lear-off” in which two men vied for the lead. Once students have read this story, they too will conduct a “Lear-off” in class, pretending they are inmates vying for the lead of Lear. What would be appealing about playing Lear from the students’ perspective, versus other roles? For instance, according to the New York Times, “Steven Miller, 33, who said he has spent half his life behind bars, starting at age 7, sought the role of Cordelia, figuring few others would want to play a woman. But soon he connected her alienation from Lear with his own struggle to communicate with estranged relatives. Now Mr. Miller proudly wears a tiara despite the razzing from guys on the unit, and even shaved his legs — at least the parts that show under his tunic — for the final performance. The tears Cordelia sheds upon reconciliation with Lear are his own, the first time he has ever cried in front of other people. “I can use putting the costume on as an excuse to show emotion,” said Mr. Miller, explaining that Lear’s abandonment of Cordelia reminds him of his own mother saying she should have had an abortion. “This lets me vent out my frustration. It lets me vent out my sadness. I’ve never actually done that.”

To do this Lear-off, students will read Lear act 1 aloud, in which Lear requests of his daughters, how much do you love me, to incentivize them to take reign over their portions of his already divided kingdom (or self), taking over responsibility for him. Students will vy for the roles of Cordelia, Regan, Lear and Goneril; then vote as a class.

End

How will I conclude this lesson? How will we integrate the ideas/experiences? How will I check for understanding? Application–what will learners do to demonstrate their learning?

Students will then read the 2011 Pacific Coast Philology article, “The Marks of Sovereignty”: The Division of the Kingdom and the Division of the Mind in King Lear. Thinking about contemporary views of madness–such as the division of Freud’s id, ego, and superego, for instance–in concert with black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm (the division of the four humours)–what can we say about the theme of madness, then as now? Using Munson’s article as a starting point, and the above mentioned activities with regard to prison Shakespeare performance approaches to Lear including journaling and other activities leading up to the performance, students will argue for whether Lear’s divisions in his mind created the destruction that ensued–is he responsible for the actions of his daughters et al?–both in his family and in his kingdom. Or was it the exterior forces that formulated Lear’s mad tendencies such as his daughters’ betrayal? What can we say about forgiveness and self-reliance/accountability in terms of the judicial system at large and in this play? These are some of the prompts students might answer, using specifics from the Lear text and what they have learned from the prison productions’ examinations.