You're bound to hear a lot about Sir Ian McKellen this fall, since he's touring two shows in rep with the Royal Shakespeare Company: "King Lear" and "The Seagull." Lear is sold out at Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, the Guthrie in Minneapolis, and UCLA's Royce Hall in L.A. There are a few seats left for Seagull in L.A., and you can always try the waiting list for Lear.
You can hardly blame Sir Ian for limiting the number of Lear performances. It's not only, by our lights, the greatest play ever written, the role of Lear is notoriously difficult emotionally and physically, and it's not written for a young man. As Lear must carry his daughter, Cordelia, at the end, John Gielgud's famous advice about the role, to an actor about to play the part, was: "Get a light Cordelia."
If you aren't able to see the great McKellen doing the theatrical equivalent of scaling Everest this fall, you can watch him work courtesy of your DVD player in movies beyond Lord of the Rings and X-Men. See him shine in Gods and Monsters, Richard III, And the Band Played On. Plus McKellan does a hilarious turn on Ricky Gervais' comedy series "Extras".
written on Friday Aug 10, 2007
actor,
knight,
salute.
