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Scene Study prepares you to perform key scenes for your theater class or audition. We've got all the information you need for a great performance.
Excerpt from Act 4, Scene 6 Dialogue: Gloucester, Edgar
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Understanding the Given Circumstances
- Gloucester and Edmund were born noblemen in the court of King Lear, and both have been stripped of every shred of outward respectability and stability they once could rely on.
- Regan and Cornwall blinded Gloucester in Act 3. He has found himself in the care of a beggar who calls himself Poor Tom.
- “Poor Tom” is actually Gloucester’s estranged son Edgar. Edgar has been framed in a plot to destroy his father. Gloucester does not yet know that Edgar is innocent.
- Gloucester is in despair. He has asked Poor Tom to take him to the Cliffs of Dover, which are situated on the southeast tip of England. When he gets to the cliffs, he will throw himself off, intending to end his life.
- Edgar and his father are not actually near cliffs; they are in an open field near Dover. Edgar plans to use his father’s suicide attempt to shake him back into sensibility.
- After Gloucester “falls,” Edgar pretends to be someone else who has found him at the bottom of the cliff.
Blocking and Movement
In theater, blocking is the process of planning the actors’ physical movements and positions. Be sure to show respect and establish trust when working with scene partners. As you prepare to block this scene, ask yourself the following questions:
- Gloucester is newly blind; his eyes have been torn from their sockets. In other words, he has not had time to adjust to his new circumstances. How does this affect his movement?
- Edgar is playing the role of Poor Tom. How does Poor Tom move? In character, does he move or perform differently even though Gloucester can’t see him? Is he good at playing the role? Is he consistent?
- Gloucester asks Poor Tom to lead him to the edge of the Cliffs of Dover so he can leap to his death. There is no real danger, because they are in an open area, but the audience should still feel the tension. How could this scene be staged to demonstrate the emotional impact of Edgar’s trick?
- What does the “fall” look like to the audience? Is there comedy despite the intensity of a suicide attempt?
Character Relationships
This scene is full of reversals and status shifts, not all of which are apparent to the characters themselves. At the top of the scene, Edgar acts the part of a low-status character, a peasant prone to madness known as “Poor Tom.” Gloucester has promised to pay Poor Tom to lead him to the edge of a steep cliff at the edge of the sea. From Gloucester’s point of view, his money and social position give him a certain status above Poor Tom: he can hire him to do his bidding. Even so, Gloucester knows he is dependent on Tom for guidance because he has recently lost his eyes.
We, the audience, know that “Tom” is Edgar, Gloucester’s son. Our perception of the status between Gloucester and Edgar is therefore different from Gloucester’s own. This tension can have both comic and dramatic effects, depending on the staging. For example, Edgar (as Tom) lies to Gloucester about where they are, taking advantage of his sightless father to shock the melancholy out of him. Gloucester makes a heartbreaking speech, which he thinks will be his last, blessing his son Edgar with his final breath. Gloucester briefly restores his status as a father and Edgar as his son.
Edgar does not trust his re-established status as an honored son, though. After Gloucester “recovers” from his imagined suicide attempt, Edgar now pretends to be another man, one with full control of his mental faculties and a more eloquent manner of speech. He continues the ruse against the blind Gloucester, telling him he has indeed fallen from the cliffs to the sea but traveled down light as a feather. Edgar’s elevated language reclaims some of his social status, but he does not dare to test whether his father’s “final” words would restore him to his place in the family.
