King Lear’s revulsion at the female form and rage against womankind may be indicative of Shakespeare’s misogyny, the actor Sir Antony Sher has suggested.
Sher’s performance as Lear for the Royal Shakespeare Company between 2016-18, directed by his husband, Gregory Doran, was praised as “unbearably moving” by the Guardian’s Michael Billington.
The actor told Cheltenham literature festival that some of the best scenes to play were also the most shocking, including Lear’s sexually disgusted rages against women with lines such as “the sulforous pit – burning, scalding, stench, consumption!”
“It is startling,” said Sher. “It is so graphic about female genitalia. I don’t believe that in a modern play you could write that now, there is something so visceral in the way Shakespeare has Lear say it I began to wonder if there was some autobiographical stuff there.”
Sher said he began to consider whether Shakespeare had “a problem with women”.
“It is Lear’s attitude to Goneril particularly, when he curses her, he curses her womb … again it becomes very graphic,” he said, adding that there is something deep inside Lear that is misogynist.
“It is actually great stuff to play because it is so full of disgust and anger,” he said.
Sher’s interviewer, the Shakespearean academic Sir Jonathan Bate, said Sher might be on to something and there were “little bits of circumstantial evidence” that Shakespeare had syphilis.
Bate said there was evidence of “a whiff of scandal” around Shakespeare: his hair fell out, he was not at court as much as other actors, perhaps because there was a law against anyone with syphilis going within 400 yards of the monarch.
The question, it was said, was whether Shakespeare contracting syphilis could have fed and inflamed misogyny.
Sher said: “There is also a lot of belief that Shakespeare was actually gay, which of course doesn’t mean he was anti-women.”
He said he did not believe Lear could have the excuse of dementia, a theory that is often debated. Sher recalled consulting a psychologist who specialised in old age while he was researching the role. “My heart leaped with joy when he said I do not believe that Lear had dementia.”
His expert, he said, pointed out that Lear begins the play by making retirement plans, which is not something people with dementia find they are able to do.
Lear is one of the most demanding of any acting challenges and Sher said he began reading about previous productions but soon stopped. He said so many accounts of playing Lear are about how hard actors find it, “I just didn’t want to know that … I didn’t want to hear about the difficulties.”
Sher’s husband, Doran, is the director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The pair had learned on a previous production not to talk about work outside the rehearsal room.
“We would have a gin or tonic or two and eventually he would get angry and plates would fly through the air. It was a baptism of fire.
“It was terribly simple, the rule which we now obey, and which works brilliantly is you walk out of the room and the work is left behind, so that you come home with your partner, your friend. It is also fairer to the other actors.”
Sher said he was from a generation who worshipped the great Shakespearean actors such as Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft.
“We worshipped and we followed what they did and we listened. I remember from South Africa getting an LP of the whole of Olivier’s Othello that he did at the National and listened to it again and again and again, just completely fascinated by it. I don’t think that younger actors are as obsessed by the tradition of Shakespeare as we were.”
