Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Familiar Faces Wear Classic Roles


The New York Times looks at the theatre season and the preponderance of King Lear shows (and, also, Kevin Spacey in Richard III? Cool!).

From the article...

SHAKESPEARE’S saddest monarch will be out on the heath again this fall, yelling at the elements and courting death by lightning, when the Public Theater opens its new production of “King Lear,” starring Sam Waterston, in November. New Yorkers may feel that this demented curser of the gods has been hanging out a lot in their neighborhood recently. You could even say he’s become sort of a cautionary fixture in this town, like that homeless guy on the corner who talks to space aliens and throws rotten fruit at passers-by.

Mr. Waterston’s interpretation, as it happens, will be the third to grace a New York stage in six months, following two imported British productions: Derek Jacobi’s version for the Donmar Warehouse (seen at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in May), and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “King Lear” of this summer, with Greg Hicks in the title role. It was only four years ago that Ian McKellen played Lear at the Brooklyn Academy (in another Royal Shakespeare Company production), while Christopher Plummer wore the same painful crown at Lincoln Center in 2004.

What gives?

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