DRAMA CLUB SCRIPT
Term: Summer 2014
Day: Saturday
Age group: 11-13
Title: King Lear
Gloucester: A grand meeting has been called at the palace, but I have other things on my mind. I
have two sons, my son Edmund is illegitimate, of course I love Edgar too, but I feel that Edmund
needs me more.
Edmund: father I’ve prepared your breakfast for you
Edgar: Those shoes don’t work with that jacket, how do you expect anyone to take you seriously in
the palace?
Fanfare……
Fool: MAP!!!!
Lear: Let it be known that England will be split in 3. I will transfer my power to the young and more
capable. Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. Tell me daughters, now we will divest both of rule: which of
you shall say you love me most?
Goneril: Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter; I love you more than duty, stars, the
universe itself. Birds love tree’s, you love your crown, sun loves the moon, stars and night, fish love
water , than love itself.
Cordelia: (Aside): What shall Cordelia do? Love and be silent.
Lear: I give you land from this line to this.
Fool: Ipswich , Bognor regis
Lear: What says my second daughter wife to Cornwall.
Regan: Sir, I am made of the self-same metal that my sister is, only she comes to short. I find I am
alone felicitating in your dear highnesses love.
Cordelia: Then Poor Cordelia, and yet not, since I am sure my love is richer than my tongue.
Fool: Liverpool to Hull. What’s that shadowy place?
Lear: Swindon, don’t go there. You shall have here to here. Last but not least, my youngest daughter
who has captured the vines of France and the milk of Burgundy; what can you say to draw a third
more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
Cordelia: Nothing my Lord.
Lear: Nothing?
Cordelia: Nothing
Lear: Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.
Cordelia: I love your majesty according to my bond, no more no less.
Lear: Cordelia! Mend your speech a little, lest it mar fortunes.
Cordelia: One day I hope to marry, how can my sisters love their husbands, when they say they love
you fully.
Lear: So young and so untender.
Cordelia: So young my lord and true.
Lear: Let it be so, thy truth be thy dower.
Kent: Good my liege.
Lear: Peace Kent. Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
Kent: Sir this hideous rashness.
Lear: Kent on thy life no more, out of my sight.
Kent: The gods to thy dear shelter take thee maid and your large speeches may your deeds approve.
That good effect may spring from words of love. The gods to thy dear shelter take thee maid (to
sisters) I hope you live up to your speeches.
Lear: Now who will take my daughter now that she has disgraced herself.
Fool: The King of France.
France: This is most strange, she was your favourite and now she has fallen from grace.
Lear: Honestly, I wish she’d never been born.
France: I will take her as she is, no dowry just love.
SCENE 2
Edmund: I was deprived of my birth-right, I am honest, true and loyal. Why then Am I so branded? I
will have respect in my father’s eyes. I will write this letter in my brother’s hand and show him for
what he really is.
Glouster: Kent is banished? The king no longer in power? And our princess moved to France, what a
busy day it’s been in court. What letter do you have?
Edmund: Nothing my Lord
Glouster: I saw it what paper are you reading?
Edmund: Nothing my lord
Glouster: No I can definitely see it in your pocket let me see or read it to me lest I need my
spectacles.
Edmund: Sir it is a letter from my brother. But please I haven’t read it fully yet so I don’t think it will
be fit for your viewing.
Glouster: Give me the letter
Edmund: No sire I think it shall offend
Glouster: Edmund As I am your father give me the letter. READ LETTER This is an outrage,
conspiracy. How dare my son Edgar write of me like this?
Edmund: It was not brought by me my lord
Glouster: You know this is your brothers hand?
Edmund: I know it is his writing
Glouster: Has he ever spoken to you of the contents of this letter
Edmund: No my lord but I have often heard him say you are old and not able to do your job properly
Glouster: VILLIAN, I will go to apprehend him, Where is he? (storm off)
Edgar: How now brother. What serious contemplation are you in?
Edmund: I am thinking about a prediction I read the other day.
Edgar: I didn’t know you were interested in Astronomy.
Edmund: It is a guilty pleasure of mine. Have you seen our father?
Edgar: No not since last night
Edmund: Did you part on good terms?
Edgar: Yes why?
Edmund: I think you may have offended him brother. It is probably best to keep your distance for
now
Edgar: What can I have said? Some villain hath done me wrong
Edmund: Let me speak with father I will find his grievance
Edgar: In the meantime I will find someone who has spoken ill of me (Sword, and exit)
Edmund: My practices ride easy, I see the business. Let me if not by birth have my lands.
SCENE 3
Goneril: Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding his fool?
Oswald: Yes madam
Goneril: By night he wrongs me, every hour!
Oswald: He’s coming madam I hear him.
FANFARE (turn)
Goneril: He is an idle old man and I don’t want him in my house any longer, do you hear me?
Oswald: I hear you madam
Goneril: I’m going to write to my sister straight away. Prepare the dinner.
Lear: Bring me my dinner right away; my stomach thinks my throat is cut. (To Jamie) What are you?
Kent (disguised): A man sir.
Lear: Yes I see and what do you want?
Kent: I want to serve you sir.
Lear: I said what are you?
Kent: I am honest and as poor as the king.
Lear: If you are as poor as me you will be a good subject. What do you want?
Kent: Service
Lear: And why do you want to serve me?
Kent: You have authority sire.
Lear: Good enough. What services can you provide?
Kent: Let me see, I can…..
Wipe the royal bottom.
I can scratch your back
Eat your dinner for you.
I can cut your toenails
Read and write French
Recite Shakespeare
Swim 100 lengths
Juggle brilliantly
Throw pies in peoples’ faces.
Train crocodiles
Lear: Brilliant, you’re hired. Where is my fool?
Knight: He says my lord that your daughters not well.
Lear: Well tell him to come here.
Knight: He was incredibly rude to me, he said he would not.
Lear: Do you know who I am?
Oswald: My lady’s father
Lear: Slave……cur.
Oswald: Don’t talk to me like that!
Lear: (Slap) How dare you, I’m the king.
Oswald: Not anymore
Lear: I’m leaving, who will come with me? Anyone else?
Gloucester castle’s (LP)
Edmund: Good day, Curan what news?
Curan: I just spoke with your father, they say the Duke of Cornwall and Regan will be here tonight.
Edmund: Why the visit?
Curan: Have you not heard the news
Edmund: I have not
Curan: There are wars between the dukes of Cornwall and Albany
Edmund: I’ve not heard a word
Curan: You will do in time (exit)
Edmund: The duke here tonight? This fits nicely with my business. My father has got his mind on
arresting my brother and I may conduct his business whilst he is distracted. Edgar my brother, our
father watches this place what are you doing here? Have you spoken with the Duke of Cornwall he
comes here with Regan this night.
Edgar: I have not heard a word
Edmund: I hear my father coming. In cunning I must draw my sword upon you. Draw, seem to
defend yourself. Go go, fly fly. (push away, cut self) Ouch Father, Father help me!
Glouster: Now where is Edgar where is that villain
Edmund: He stood there in the dark with his sharp sword and picked a fight with me
Glouster: But where is he now
Edmund: Look sir I bleed
Glouster: Ah where is that villain, tell me which way he went
Edmund: He went this way sir
(Enter Regan, Cornwall)
Cornwall: How now my noble friend. I have heard strange news.
Regan: If it be true, all vengeance comes too short. How dost my lord?
Glouster: Oh madam my old heart is cracked, it’s cracked
Regan: What has my father’s godson done? Where is Edgar
Glouster: Oh the shame of it, the shame.
Cornwall: Thank goodness you have Edmund. I hear you have shown your father a great kindness
Edmund: It was my duty sir.
Glouster: Even defending my great honour now he is hurt.
Cornwall: Is he pursued
Glouster: aye my lord.
Cornwall: let us hope that he is captured before he does any more harm.
Glouster: I thank you, I thank your grace.
Cornwall: Do you know why we came to visit you?
Glouster: That I am not sure.
Regan: Our father he has written, and so has our sister, of certain differences which I thought fit to
tell you in person. We are in need of your counsel and must stay here.
Glouster: I serve you madam; your graces are welcome in my home
Scene 3
Oswald: Good Afternoon, I’m sorry but do you know this house well?
Kent: Quite well
Oswald: Could you tell me where the stables are please.
Kent: No
Oswald: Prithee, if you love me tell me
Kent: I love thee not.
Oswald: Well, then I care not for thee, what dost thou know me for?
A knave. A rascal, an eater of broken meats.
A base, proud, shallow beggarly 3-suited hundred pound
Filthy worsted stocking knave
Lilly livered action-taking knave
Glass gazing super serviceable finical rougue.
All: A whore’s son
The son and heir of a mongrel dog!
Oswald: What a monstrous fellow thou art
Kent: Draw you rascal, you come with letter against the king!
Regan: What is going on here?!
Kent: This traitor has spoken against your father!
Goneril: What could he have said that could necessitate this battle?
Kent: He disrespects my king.
Regan: Your king must earn his respect.
Goneril: The only disrespect here is in the position you stand. Oswald, you may put this man in the
stocks.
Oswald: Yes, Milady.
Regan: Oh, and make sure my father hears of his demise.
Goneril: Then we shall wrong him dear sister.
(Regan and Goneril improvise speaking against the king)
Glouster: I knew you were planning against your king!
Goneril: Albany, come here I need you to run an errand for me.
Regan: Cornwall I need you to fetch my sewing basket and knitting needles.
(Eyes are stabbed out with the help of Cornwall)
Edgar: Father Sir… Are you hurt?
Glou: Kind sir who are you?
My name poor Tom - Don’t worry I’ll help you
Glouster: We must get word to the king. His daughters are conspiring against him.
(Split stage: Regan knitting in the middle.)
Kent: Lear my master
Lear: Where have you been?
Kent: Gloucester’s castle and I’d still be there the stocks if I hadn’t been freed.
Lear: By who?
Kent: Gloucester, but he’s in a terrible way now, eyes gauged out by your own daughters.
Lear: Of all the contempt and loathing they must have for me. They are villains in their own right.
Kent: Sire, it’s not safe for you here. We must get you to Dover.
Lear: Very well. But let it be known that my heart is broken, and my family are dead to me.
SCENE - Storm
(SOUNDSCAPE starts all in circle around Lear and the Fool. Movement to walking around the two.
Phrases used are: Blow, winds and crack your cheeks! You cataracts and hurricanes, spout. Till you
have drench’d our steeples etc. Everyone moves to line upstage following cyclic transition from King
Lear’s storm scene to the Duke of Gloucester in the centre. Edgar leads Glouster by the forearm
from stage left to the centre of the stage)
Glouster: Are we at the top of the hill yet?
Edgar: Yes, can you not feel the drag on your feet?
(Chorus runs behind Lear and puts a scarf around his knees so that when he walks a drag is felt
pulling her back.)
Edgar: Look how you’re climbing; it’s very difficult.
Glouster: Me thinks the ground is very uneven.
(chorus X2 lie in front of Glouster and Edgar as they are walking.)
Edgar: It’s awfully steep. Listen; I hear the sea.
(Remaining people create sea noises)
Glouster: Truly? I can’t hear a thing.
(Noises grow on Edgar’s command.)
Edgar: Your other senses must be weak after the incident. (Turns Rosie around on stage right to face
stage left.)
Glouster: Are yes, they may be indeed. I think your voice sounds different.
Edgar: (Voice deeper) Oh, really? I can assure you it’s the same really. (Continue to centre stage,
leading Glouster). This is the place, sir. (Only Edgar continues to edge of ‘cliff’ ;) My, it is awfully high
(echoing voice). Are you sure you want to jump of the cliff?
Glouster: Aye; there is no point in living any more, and nothing left for me in this world. Set me
where you stand.
Edgar: Farewell. Save a place for me in heaven.
Glouster: Oh you mighty Gods. This world I do renounce. If Edgar lives, tell him I am sorry and ask
him to forgive me. Now farewell, cruel world.
(Glouster falls forward from position on her knees onto her outstretched arms, takes a dramatic
pause and feels the ground before feeling herself.)
(Continue movements and sounds crescendoing to point of potential suicide.)
Glouster: Oh, that wasn’t as bad as I expected…
Narrator: Why is the King of France so suddenly returned?
Narrator: Something importing danger to his state
Narrator: Did Cordelia read how her sisters used her father?
Narrator: Ay, she cried ‘Sisters, sisters, shame of ladies, what, in the night?’ while her eyes ran with
holy water
Narrator: The poor Lear’s in the town, but will not see her. Of Cornwall and Albany’s powers you
heard not?
Narrator: Ay, they are afoot.
Messenger: Madam, the British powers are on the march.
Cordelia: Our preparation stands in expectation.
Father, it is thy business that we go about
Narrator: Sir, do you hear aught of a battle toward?
Narrator: Everyone can hear the armies on the move…
Narrator: And yet Lear sleeps on
*Battle – Music. Cordelia and Lear are captured*
Cordelia: We are not the first who, with best meaning have incurred the worst. For thee, oppressed
King, am I cast down.
Lear: No, no, no, no! Come, let us away to prison. We two alone will sing like birds in the cage. So
we’ll live, and pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh.
Edmund: Take them away. (To captain) Come here, captain. Follow them to prison. Cordelia is to be
executed. Say you’ll do it, or thrive by other means.
Captain: I’ll do it, my lord. (Enter Edgar, behind) What are you? Thy name and quality?
Edgar: My name is lost, by treason’s tooth bare-gnawn. What’s he that speaks for Edmund, Earl of
Gloucester?
LP Group AM and PM
Edgar: Edmund I thought I’d find you here. I know everything you’ve done to father
Edmund: I don’t recognise you as a brother but if you are a man, draw.
(fight)
Edm: Goneril and Regan. Both women have love for me, therefore cannot exist on this earth
together.
(G and R poison and stab)
Edmund: I have done terrible things, I intend to do good one last time. Cancel the writ on Cordelier’s
life.
Captain: Sir, it’s too late!
Lear: Cordelia my beautiful Cordelia, look her lips, they are blue and no life ebs from them, my poor
Cordelia dead.
(dies)
Two tableaux)
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Edmund: Himself: what say’st thou to him?
Edgar: My sword and spirits are here bent to prove that thou art a most toad-spotted traitor, false to
thy brother, thy father and thy gods!
Edmund: I should ask thy name, but that do I spurn: Back do I toss these treasons to thy head, which
my sword shall give them instant way. Trumpets, speak!
(trumpets are heard, and they fight. Edmund falls. During the following dialogue, along the back,
Goneril poisons Regan.)
Messenger: Help, help, oh, help! This knife, it smokes… it came from the heart of – O, she’s dead!
Albany: Who dead? Speak, man.
Messenger: Your lady, sir, your lady: and her sister by her is poisoned; she hath confessed it.
Albany: This judgment of the heavens, that makes us tremble, touches us not with pity.
Edmund: To both these sisters have I sworn my love, each jealous of the other. Neither could be
enjoyed if both remained alive. To the castle, and cancel the writ on Cordelia’s life.
Lear: This feather stirs; she lives! If it be so, it is a chance which does redeem all sorrows that ever I
have felt!
Kent: All’s cheerless, dark, and deadly. Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves, and
desperately are dead.
Lear: Ay, so I think.
Messenger: (Checking on Edmund) Edmund is dead, my lord.
Albany: That’s but little trifle here.
Messenger: And your fool, my lord.
Lear: My poor fool, hanged! No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no
breath at all? Thou’lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never! Cordelia! Do you see this?
Look on her, look, her lips, look there, look there! (Lear dies)
Messenger: He faints! My Lord, my Lord!
Kent: The wonder is, he hath endured so long: He but usurped his life.
Messenger: Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! He hates him much that would upon the rack of this
tough world stretch him out longer.
Albany: Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are
young shall never see so much, not live so long.