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This great stage of fools

这满是傻瓜的偌大舞台

Sir Kenneth Branagh’s bold production of "King Lear" makes the case for tragic art.

肯尼思·布拉纳爵士大胆突破的《李尔王》证明了悲剧艺术的意义所在。

Murder on the television, agony on the radio; lies and hatred on the internet, plus snuff videos that you click on before realising your mistake.

电视上的谋杀剧情，收音机上的痛苦故事，互联网上的谎言和仇恨，还有你点开后才反应过来的下流视频。

The planet is a boiling cauldron in which you are the complacent frog.

地球就像一个沸腾的大锅，而你是身处其中但满不在乎的一只青蛙。

When the real world feels like a charnel house, why spend an evening and a chunk of cash watching bodies pile up on stage?

当现实世界就像是一个停尸房，为什么还要花一晚上的时间和一大笔钱来看堆满尸体的舞台呢？

And in “King Lear”, Shakespeare piles them high.

在《李尔王》中，莎士比亚让尸体高高堆起。

“That’s but a trifle here,” a character says of another’s demise during the final die-in.

“这只是一件小事”--众多人物最后相继死去，一个角色谈起另一个角色的死亡时这样说道。

But the play—and Sir Kenneth Branagh’s ingenious new production in London—make a powerful case for subjecting yourself to tragic art, even at a time of surround-sound horror.

但这部戏剧--以及肯尼思·布拉纳爵士在伦敦上演的制作精巧的新版《李尔王》--有力地证明了为什么在有环绕立体声恐怖片的时代，依然要让自己置身悲剧艺术中。

These days “King Lear” is performed less often than “Hamlet”, with its startlingly acute psychology, or “Othello” and “Macbeth”, with their overtly modern themes of race, misogyny and the corrupting effects of power.

如今，《李尔王》的上演次数比《哈姆雷特》和《奥赛罗》《麦克白》少，《哈姆雷特》敏锐地刻画了人物心理，《奥赛罗》《麦克白》则讨论了种族、厌女症、权力的腐败等具有鲜明现代色彩的主题。

Critics have frequently regarded “Lear” as a triumph of philosophical poetry but impractical as a play.

评论家们经常认为《李尔王》是哲学诗歌的典范，但作为一部戏剧有些脱离实际。

There is just too much of it, and too much in it: too many ideas and emotions, too many stories and, above all, too much desolation and despair.

剧中包含的内容太多了，不忍卒读：太多的想法和情感，太多的故事，最重要的是，还有太多的孤寂和绝望。

The evil characters destroy one another, but they take the good down with them.

邪恶的角色互相毁灭，并拉来善良的角色与他们陪葬。

Love kills; man is nothing but a “poor, bare, forked animal”.

爱是致命的，人只不过是一只“寒伧、赤裸的两脚动物”。

Throughout the 18th century this bleakness seemed so shocking, even immoral, that “Lear” was staged with a revised happy ending.

在整个18世纪，这种阴暗色调如此令人震惊，甚至是不道德的，以至于《李尔王》在上演时被改成了大团圆结局。

Audiences still struggle with emotional overload.

如今观众仍不能适应剧中的沉重情感。

A decade ago, at another vaunted production in London, people sniggered when they were meant to weep.

十年前，在伦敦上演的另一版备受吹捧的《李尔王》中，当人们应该哭泣的时候，他们却暗自发笑。

Sir Kenneth, a British actor and director, stars in and directs the version that opened at the Wyndham’s Theatre on October 31st.

肯尼思爵士是一位英国演员兼导演，他主演并执导了10月31日在温德姆剧院上映的《李尔王》。

(It goes to the Shed in New York in 2024.)

(将于2024年于纽约“棚屋”艺术中心上演。)

Part of his response to the play’s scale is to cut lots of it.

肯尼思对该剧体量的处理方式是削减大量内容。

Running with no interval for ice-cream and gossip, this is two hours of neat tragedy—set, boldly, in Neolithic Britain.

其中没有吃冰淇淋和聊八卦的休息时间，就是干净利落的长达两小时的悲剧--大胆地设定在新石器时代的英国。

Wearing animal skins and wielding spears, the cast hulks around a stark set that recalls Stonehenge, their faces intermittently looming on the stones in un-Neolithic projections.

演员们穿着兽皮、挥舞着长矛，脚步沉重地在一个巨石阵般的荒凉布景中行走，非新石器时代机器投影出石头影像，他们的脸庞在其中若隐若现。

Above them hangs an orb resembling both a planet and an eyeball, which sometimes seems to bleed.

在演员们的上方悬挂着一个既像行星又像眼球的球体，有时看起来像是在流血。

Here the power struggle that follows Lear’s division of his kingdom is less a clash of armies than a scrap for a bauble in the mud.

在这个版本中，李尔王划分王国之后的权力斗争与其说是一场军事冲突，不如说是为了争夺小玩意儿而在泥地里打架。

Yet the absence of pomp also makes the family drama at the story’s heart seem movingly intimate and familiar.

然而，因为没有华丽的场面，所以处于故事核心的家庭剧情显得非常亲密和熟悉。

Captured by his foes, arms bound behind his back, Sir Kenneth’s Lear uses his beard to dry the tears of his beloved daughter Cordelia (Jessica Revell).

肯尼思爵士饰演的李尔王被敌人俘虏，双臂被绑在背后，他用胡须擦去了心爱的女儿考狄利娅(杰西卡·雷维尔饰)的眼泪。

Soon he heaves her corpse onto the stage, howling in grief; this time, nobody laughed.

很快，他把女儿的尸体抬到舞台上，悲痛地怒吼着，这一次，没有人发笑。

They chuckled at other moments though, as Sir Kenneth judiciously keeps and hones the funny bits to help the philosophy go down.

但观众们在其他时刻笑出了声，肯尼思爵士明智地保留并打磨了剧中有趣的部分，让人们更好地接受其中的哲学。

It is not just the humour of absurdist madness and slapstick torment that hovers between pathos and ridicule, often called the “comedy of the grotesque”.

在哀婉和讥笑之余不仅仅有荒诞疯狂和打闹戏弄带来的幽默，这些通常被称为“怪诞喜剧”。

There is also the comedy of charismatic devilment and gullibility, of champion wordplay and some of Shakespeare’s most colourful insults.

还有妙趣横生的恶作剧和上当受骗、巧妙高级的文字游戏和莎士比亚最精彩的一些嬉笑怒骂。

As for the purpose of tragedy: Edgar (Doug Colling) implies one as he drags his blind and suicidal father Gloucester (Joseph Kloska) across ancient Britain.

至于悲剧的意义：爱德加(道格·科林饰)拉着他那双目失明且一心求死的父亲葛罗斯特(约瑟夫·克罗斯卡饰)穿行在古代英国时，暗示了其中一个意义。

“Men must endure/Their going hence, even as their coming hither,” he preaches. “Ripeness is all.”

“人必须忍受离开世间，如忍受来到世间。”爱德加说道，“成熟落地才是最终归属。”

Life, in other words, is an endurance test.

换句话说，人生就是一场耐力测试。

It follows that, for viewers, tragic art is a kind of practice in grinning and bearing it.

因此，对于观众来说，悲剧艺术就是一种苦笑着忍受磨难的练习。

We have had quite enough practice in that, today’s punters may think; and a homily on stoicism makes a priggish sort of moral.

现在的观众可能会认为，我们练习吃苦已经够多了，这种斯多葛主义的说教是一种有些清高死板的教益。

Edgar’s conclusion, however, is not the play’s.

然而，爱德加的结论并不是该剧的结论。

The rationale it offers for its spectacle of pain is more than a lesson in patience, more even than the sense of solidarity in suffering that acting as fine as Sir Kenneth’s can provide.

这部剧呈现痛苦的理由不仅仅是教导人们要有耐心，甚至也不只是面对苦难时要相互扶持，肯尼思爵士精妙的演绎表明了这一点。

“King Lear” is full of audiences: characters who witness folly, misery or cruelty and must choose what to do about them.

《李尔王》中有很多观众：他们目睹了愚蠢、痛苦、残忍，必须选择如何应对这些。

Some weigh their interests and join in.

一些人权衡了自己的利益，并加入了进来。

Some wring their hands.

一些人扭着双手不知所措。

A few resist, such as the heroic servant who objects as Cornwall (a sinister Hughie O’Donnell) rips out Gloucester’s eyes in a spasm of bloodlust and impunity.

还有一些人奋起反抗，比如那位英勇的仆人，当康华尔(邪恶版休吉·奥唐奈饰)忽然燃起了嗜血欲且无需为恶行受罚，因此挖去了葛罗斯特的双眼时，仆人表示了反对。

It is hard to imagine yourself as Lear, even one as denuded as Sir Kenneth’s.

我们很难想象自己是李尔王，即使是像肯尼思爵士饰演的不加修饰的李尔王。

But maybe you could, just about, be like the unheralded minor figures who opt to act instead of merely watching.

但也许你可以像那些出其不意的小人物一样，选择采取行动，而不仅仅是袖手旁观。

“O, you are men of stones,” the king cries at the close, demanding greater compassion for injustice from the surviving characters—and from the audience, too.

“啊，你们是铁石心肠的人。”国王在结束时喊道，要求幸存的人物--以及观众--对遭受非正义的人表现出更大的同情。

Don’t just sit there, the play urges. Do something.

这出戏敦促人们，不要只是坐在那里，做些什么吧。

来源：经济学人