The Promised End

I won’t pretend I have it all figured out.

Years ago, I directed a production of King Lear. In that tragic play, people die. The most heartbreaking death is that of Cordelia, Lear’s youngest daughter. Cordelia has the same root as the Latin word for “heart.”

Lear has been an absolute terror of a father to Cordelia throughout the play, and he’s lost his mind. At a potential moment of reconciliation, Lear instead discovers Cordelia’s body and carries it feebly onto the stage.

Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stone.
Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so
That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!

Kent. Is this the promis'd end?

This shocking moment is also one of Shakespeare’s most iconic. It’s so shocking that Lear’s loyal man who has watched carefully from a distance for the length of the play suggests that the sight might be a sign of the apocalypse — ultimate doom — the end promised in scripture and mythology.

Making matters worse is that Shakespeare presents this scene as an alternate ending, and it is all the more shocking for that reason. Years before, there’d been another play about the same characters — this one called King Leir. In that play, Cordelia did not die. You can imagine, perhaps, the throngs of audiences showing up to Shakespeare’s Lear expecting to see a remake of a markedly more pleasant script and instead having their hearts ripped out instead. Imagine your favorite romantic comedy punctuated by the unexpected death of a main character and you get the idea.

Many years later, after a long civil war in England full of destabilizing and bloody battles for power, another playwright named Nahum Tate picked up Shakespeare’s play and knew that his traumatized audiences would not be able to take the heartbreak of Shakespeare’s ending. So he rewrote it again, this time with Lear and Cordelia surviving and Cordelia getting married to Edgar.

In my production of King Lear, we decided to play off these alternate endings a bit. We did Shakespeare’s play and then had a long curtain call song, at the end of which the actor playing Cordelia, who had been laying onstage the whole time, took a loud gasp of air, stood up, and took her bow. Hearts skipped, I can tell you.

Sometimes, we must make our own days after long periods — lifetimes, even — of losing days to heartache, trauma, shame, and blame. Each time we do this, we’re engaged in a kind of resurrection.

Go ahead and make your day.