Word: lear
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Bradley said that "King Lear" was too huge for the stage. He would presumably have applied this dictum to the stage of the Brattle Theatre Company. Yet that group, with the invaluable assistance of William Devlin, has managed to confine this great play within the limits of its stage. It has achieved that rarely attempted, even more rarely successful, feat a good production of Lear...
Even though you may consider yourself well-informed on matters theatrical, it is quite likely that you have been wondering about the William Devlin who is to appear in "King Lear" at Brattle Hall. In hopes of clearing up this matter, I had a talk with Mr. Devlin last week. He seems to be a vigorous, intelligent man, and is articulate on all subjects but himself. For an actor of whom the critic James Agate wrote ". . . it may be that here is the new great actor for whom the English state has impatiently waited since the death of Irving," this...
...William Devlin made his first London appearance as Lear. That Shakespeare's mightiest here should be played by one so young made it a newsworthy event; that the young actor should be unanimously hailed by the critics as the best Lear they had known made it an important occasion in the English-speaking theatre. Later Lears that have come along, notably Laurence Olivier's, have pleased some critics who prefer a witless, senile Lear. But most reviewers emphasize the word "majesty' in their praise of the Devlin Lear. The New York Times corrsepondent wrote that Mr. Devlin was acting Lear...
...bemused subjects, he makes a crippled old woman prisoner his official consort. To cut off his link with the past, he kills his own father, one of his political prisoners. In what Author Warner intends as appropriate irony, a prison cast is rehearsing for a performance of King Lear as the novel's climax approaches ; the end of the play is to be the signal for the Governor's Putsch...
...beautiful, amoral wife, who has fallen in love with Goat. On a yacht off the island, from which the stage can be seen, the Minister for Public Instruction, the Governor's political rival, is also waiting for the play to be over. When Mr. Goat, as Lear, comes on bearing Maria as the dead Cordelia, it is obvious that Maria is indeed dead; the Governor has killed her. At the Minister's signal, his crew fire a rocket broadside which kills the Governor, Mr. Goat,and almost everyone on the island...