ABSTRACT
This chapter connects Richard Burbage’s original linked performance of title characters in Volpone and King Lear with modern performances that expose and render transparent the performance of age and disability. In a 2004 RSC production of King Lear, a 65-year-old Corin Redgrave entered the stage haltingly, leaning heavily on a cane, as if his Lear was indeed beginning to “crawl towards death”. But as he neared his expectant family and attendants gathered around a banquet table, he suddenly sprang upright and tossed his stick to Albany, laughing at his parody of an octogenarian. The titular roles in King Lear and Volpone are two of roles scholars know for certain that Richard Burbage played. Roslyn Knutson places these plays as roughly contemporaneous, and notes that both appear to have been performed in 1605–1606, with both likely to have been extended into 1607, and possibly taken on tour together. Volpone and Lear both reveal and highlight construction of stage disability and madness.
