 Everyone, including the actor who plays the Duke of Cornwall, agree that his character is terrifying. He is.....adept at the removal of certain body parts and thinks nothing of violence as an everyday currency. He is so frightening the only House he would fit in is ultra-violent House Bolton, who would probably applaud his methods of torture and pour him a congratulatory glass of wine. Married to the equally sadistic Regan, daughter of King Lear, (House Targaryen) The Cornwalls are a perfectly-matched, perfectly insane power couple.  Brother-in-law to Cornwall and wife of Lear's eldest Goneril (House Targaryen) The Duke of Albany is opposite Cornwall in every way. Dutiful, devoted and even-keeled Albany is an ethical man, sadly matched to his unstable and calculating wife. Despite her general awfulness, Albany still loves Goneril and is willing to forgive her faults.....up to a certain point. He is much like the gentle-until-provoked bear on the sigil of House Mormont, the Warrior Knights of northern Bear Island. A word of advice--never mistake Albany's gentleness for mildness.  The Duchess of Kent, loyal advisor and noble servant of King Lear is honest-to-a-fault, highly educated, and able to pull off elaborate and brilliant plans. She is from a region where women are given as much power to rule as men are, and she carries herself as a worthy adversary to any foe. We think the Duchess of Kent would be right at home in House Tyrell, home to the forceful and cunning "Olenna Tyrell, Queen of Thorns," whose plotting unseated a terrible king.
Fun fact: Olenna Tyrell is played on HBO's Game of Thrones by the divine goddess, Diana Rigg, who in the 1984 version of King Lear, played Lear's middle daughter Regan. YASSS!
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 Continuing our series from yesterday where we match up characters and families in King Lear with Houses in Game of Thrones, today we'll look at the Gloucester family, headed up by Lear's oldest and dearest friend, the Earl of Gloucester. Loyal to a fault, the Earl and his son Edgar are perhaps a bit too....trusting and good, willing to believe what's told to them, and be guided by bonds of duty and honor. This dutiful-to-an-error quality is similar to Game of Throne's House Tully. The Earl of Gloucester is so ruled by loyalty and love it breaks his heart, and his son Edgar follows an oath he makes to a violent end. Just as House Tully will probably not fare very well in Game of Thrones, House Gloucester will go down swinging with their heads held high. But there is one more member of House Gloucester.....the Earl's bastard son, Edmund. Raised by his mother's people, Edmund is obsessed with power and legitimization, and makes foolhardy and dangerous decisions to advance his interests. Because Edmund does not share his father's sense of honor and instead plays upon his goodness, he's placed firmly in House Greyjoy, and much like Theon Greyjoy, his need to prove himself might not turn out very well.
  The similarities between the violence, power struggles, shifting alliances and ever-changing loyalties in "King Lear" and "Game of Thrones" are....Stark. (Boom, Game of Thrones joke right out of the gates.) An insane King, struggles to control the throne, exile, torture, hangings, lustful affairs and deadly sword fights occur in nearly every episode of Game of Thrones, and make up the entire plot of King Lear. While I'm sure we are not the first theatre company to draw this parallel, as our show opens the weekend after Game of Thrones season 6 premieres, what began as a side-joke is now a full-time backstage discussion piece for the cast. Which characters from King Lear would belong to each Game of Thrones house? Going off of character similarity between the two stories, our dork-deep knowledge of the books and the show, and exceptional nerd powers, we have theorized where each character's loyalty will lie. The story of Lear giving away his kingdom to his daughters as he loses his mind and flashes into disturbed rages, while his unstable elder daughters plot and scheme and the youngest plans to take over from exile is very House Targaryen Mental instability and violent rages plague both the Targaryens and King Lear, and his eldest daughters Goneril, and Regan. Sweet Cordelia is much like Daenerys, the rightful heir to the throne who is attempting to regain power while in exile. Using lines from each character, we've given "House Lear" their sigil banners
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AuthorsChristopher Daniels is the current Managing Director of GLM Theatre and a bright shining light upon the stage. Archives
February 2019
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