Author: Philippa Kelly
A 2011 ‘minigraph’ in the second wave of the Shakespeare Now series, The King and I by Philippa Kelly, reads King Lear alongside her own education and teaching experience. At the same time, Kelly’s reading explores the role of the play in Australia with particular focus on its significance in the Australian media. The ‘minigraph’ is much more than a collection of personal thoughts on the play and its place in the writer’s history, however, and it is hard to do it justice here. In a series of separate chapters which move through her personal narrative chronologically, Kelly explores questions of parenting, playing the fool, madness, the tragic, and shame. The final chapter considers three John Bell productions of the play (1984; 1998; 2010). Her approach moves from her own subjective reading and experience to open the play out potentially for others – critics, teachers, students, theatre professionals, and the ‘general reader’. Written by the Resident Dramaturg at the California Shakespeare Theater, the book bridges both literary criticism and theatre studies, as well as providing a scholarly and personal account of the play. Anyone invested in King Lear should read this book, not just those who are interested in its Australian connections.
“Outlaws, irreverent humorists, political underdogs, authoritarians – and the silhouette, throughout, of a contemporary Australian woman: these are some of the figures who emerge from Philippa Kelly’s extraordinary personal tale, The King and I. Kelly uses Shakespeare’s King Lear as it has never been used before – to tell the story of Australia and Australians through the intimate journey she makes with Shakespeare’s old king, whose struggles and torments are touchstones for the variety, poignancy and humour of Australian life. We hear the shrieking of birds and feel the heat of dusty towns, and we also come to know about important moments in Australia’s social and political landscape: about the evolution of women’s rights; about the erosion and reclamation of Aboriginal identity and the hardships experienced by transported settlers; and about attitudes toward age and endurance. At the heart of this book is one woman’s personal story, and through this story we come to understand many profound and often hilarious features of the land Down Under.”
– Book Blurb
Shakespeare Books 