Listen No. 5 - Lear’s Mental Anguish - Shakespeare & Psychiatry No. 3

Genre: Psychiatry, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, inventive pharmaceutical marketing.

Context:  Richard would have acquired this during his psychiatric career in America. I’m not sure where he was working in 1971, and the disc was still sealed when he gave it to me. Sandoz made four of these records, and by all accounts, the first two boxed discs contained phials of the drug being marketed - Serentil (mesoridazine). The premise for these recordings is fascinating- take four famous figures from Shakespeare (Falstaff, Ophelia, Lear and Corionalus) - and get a selection of celebrated guests to discuss what ails these characters.

 Notable facts:  The panel chewing over Lear are psychiatrist Dr Gerald L. Klerman. Shakespearean actor Morris Carnovsky, and literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman. No one mentions Serentil (perhaps they aren’t allowed to), and the discussion is so interesting that you can easily forget that anyone ever needs to be medicated out of their distress. But a diagnosis is suggested - Lear is either having a psychotic episode, or is delirious. The panel all agree that, dramatically,  King Lear is ‘an essay on geriatrics, but poor Stanley Edgar Hyman died a few weeks after the recording, aged just 51.

My favourite track: Doesn’t apply here, but my favourite quotes are  ‘doom-eager’,‘the first sharp, jagged rock on which Lear splits’, and also, ‘three levels of derangement.’

What critics made of it: No idea. I think this is gold dust. It made me wonder how many other recordings there are out there that never got digitised. 

Listening to this inspired me to: Buy the rest of the set. More details below -

https://www.discogs.com/label/1365034-Shakespeare-and-Psychiatry

And read King Lear (in an edition with plenty of annotations so I can work out what the hell is going on).