A Quote by Louis Auchincloss

I think Shakespeare got drunk after he finished King Lear. That he had a ball writing it. — © Louis Auchincloss
I think Shakespeare got drunk after he finished King Lear. That he had a ball writing it.
King Lear by William Shakespeare frightens me. I've never done King Lear, I guess partially because my father dwindled into dementia in his last years and King Lear is such an accurate portrayal of a father figure suffering from dementia - the play was almost intolerable for me.
King Lear is undoubtedly the greatest play ever written by Shakespeare - or anybody else for that matter. Hamlet is certainly great, but it doesn't contain as many elements of humanity as we see in Lear.
I guess if they ever do a remake of 'Sophie's Choice,' I could play the Meryl Streep part. I've got to work on my Polish accent. Maybe I'll be the definitive King Lear one day. You know, if they ever feel that King Lear should be more Jewy.
Had Shakespeare listened to the news of Duncans death in a tavern or heard the knocking on his own bedroom door after he had finished the writing of Macbeth?
Shakespeare wrote all there is that we need to know about dementia in 'King Lear.
Shakespeare wrote all there is that we need to know about dementia in 'King Lear.'
I used to think 'King Lear' was an analysis of insanity, but I don't really think it is. When Lear is supposed to be at his most insane, he is actually understanding the world for the first time.
From the American retelling of Romeo and Juliet in West Side Story to the Japanese adaptation of King Lear in Ran, Shakespeare's cultural influence is virtually limitless.
When I closed in "King Lear" I went into a period of depression for about three weeks, and every actor I've talked to who's ever played a major, major Shakespeare role has done this.
I look at it like this: that if Shakespeare were alive today, he would have written two or three plays about the Kennedy family, and actors would traditionally play JFK like they Hamlet or King Lear. They just would. I mean, people have played JFK, and they'll play him long after I have.
Any older actor knows the last great mountain to climb is to play King Lear and now, if I ever play Lear, I will have done the pre-preparation because I had to go into the play and read it over and over again.
Things happen in 'If This is a Man' that are beyond ordinary daily experience, but it is still us to whom they are happening, and the understanding Levi seeks is no different in kind from that sought by Shakespeare in 'King Lear', or Conrad in 'The Heart of Darkness'.
I think William Shakespeare's like a passport through your life: as a kid hearing about a play with fairies or witches or ghosts, you get excited by that possibility. Then later on you become interested in the psychology or the politics or the beauty of the language. You grow up with the plays. King Lear is one that I don't feel grown up enough to do yet.
Your Majesty, you just-" Costis stopped. "Just what?" the king prompted wickedly. Nothing would induce Costis to say out loud that the king had almost fallen from the palace wall and that Costis had seen him manifestly saved by the God of Thieves. The king smiled. "Cat got your tongue?" "Your Majesty, you are drunk," Costis pleaded. "I am. What's your excuse?
Shakespeare is a seminal story-teller. I don't think he imagined he was writing classics or that he was writing great poetry. I don't think he dreamt his work would be staged 400 years after he died.
I think working on Shakespeare was a big part of my time at drama school. I'm so glad that I got to know Shakespeare and got a chance to play great parts in Shakespeare, because it really teaches you - or taught me, anyway - everything.
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