Age before beauty

I completed my cycle of monthly Shakespearean plays with King Lear, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company for the Courtyard Theatre and a subsequent world tour, which included my hometown's Guthrie Theater, and, fortunately for me, the New London Theatre, here in the West End. Tickets for the New York City and Los Angeles shows were reportedly selling for over a thousand dollars, but I had no trouble scooping up decent seats in the center of the dress circle for a very reasonable price.

Fortunately for me (and even more fortunate for those who bought their tickets at such exorbitant prices), the production delivered quite admirably. McKellen was excellent as the king, capturing both his foolishness and his sweetness, allowing us to both empathize with and pity the old man. He was strongly supported all around. Jonathan Hyde's performance as the Earl of Kent was particularly admirable, and Frances Barber and Monica Dolan made excellent villains of Goneril and Regan. In my mind there were no obvious weaknesses in the cast, and I noted that every scene was made clearer than I have ever witnessed in a Shakespearean tragedy. Scenes in both Othello and MacBeth managed to escape my understanding, but I was able to follow King Lear entirely, and I think credit goes to the talented supporting cast. My only great frustration with the production was the wretched soundtrack, which included both beautiful and clever organ pieces, and some cookie-cutter "dramatic music." The latter included clichéd horn and string pieces little better than the now facetious dun-dun-DAAA!. These often intruded on scenes so excellently constructed that no soundtrack would have been necessary at all (the sword fight between brothers Edmund and Edgar was easily the best fight I've seen staged). Thankfully, the excellent lighting, staging, acting, and (of course) script more than made up for the surprisingly amateurish score, and the evening was good.