Glenda Jackson Wins Broadway King Lear Title

With the arrival of her powerful Lear, Glenda Jackson has, in one year, provided Broadway with two portraits depicting once-imposing characters humbled by age – a matriarch in Three big women, now the ultimate patriarch of the theater King Lear, opening tonight at the Cort Theater. I have no doubt that she will be able to come back next spring as a young Harry Potter if she wishes.

She is so ferocious and nervous that she takes Shakespeare's lion in winter, to the point that these spoiled girls and their men would be well advised to send their regrets and not to go to a family reunion. Fortunately for us, they give as well as they get.

Directed by Sam Gold (A dollhouse, part 2), produced by Scott Rudin and until July 7, last Broadway opus Lear has a distribution that includes L & # 39; s case"Ruth Wilson missed a lot, the perfect score Jayne Houdyshell (like Jackson, playing the masculine) and this condemned libertine of Game of thrones Pedro Pascal. Miriam Buether, scenic designer, looks slyly cunning (all this Trump Tower gold can not be involuntary), Lear is a coup de grace.

With a breathtaking mix of contemporary dress styles (Ann Roth costumes, who else?) And accompanied by a string quartet on stage playing an exciting original score by Philip Glass – the music might well to be considered a Greek choir in itself – Lear is brand new and not to be confused with the recent role played by Jackson in London. I have not seen it, so I can not make comparisons, but I can only assume that time and repetition have allowed the easing we are witnessing. Or maybe it fits the role of Day One. Imprudent to make assumptions about this actress.

Dressed, for the most part, in a black but spacious suit and a Churchill-vintage polka-dots vest (to me, anyway, but maybe it's just the ever-present ceramic bulldog on stage playing turns), his loose hair in classic English Schoolboy Cup (or, if you prefer, Bowie of Thin White Duke White), Jackson Lear is not a weak, he is rather a warrior too early discarded. Maybe he slips, this king, and knows what's going to happen, but that roar of sandpaper and hastily cut eyes make sense of the tragedy of forced retreat.

You know the plot. Lear, about to divide the kingdom, asks for confirmation of the love and dedication of his daughters; the two flatterers, Goneril (Elizabeth Marvel, who starts slowly and ends with a punch) and Regan (Aisling O'Sullivan, corporate viper, syrupy voice, long blond hair, draw your own conclusions), take the kingdom then betray. Cordelia (Wilson) will not play, only get in trouble, keep her dignity and deserve the last minute gratitude of the old man. Things are ending badly for everyone involved.

Initially taking place in a vast golden room that could pass for the golden hall of the idea of ​​a five-star paradise hotel (ahem), with the statues of a lion and that bulldog flanking a banquet table modular and versatile, this m Lear is a production of many parts and memorable moments.

To pick a few: Pascal (he played Oberyn Martell, the hedonist not to take prisoners with a heart in the fourth season of The Thrones), in a tuxedo that will slip quickly enough, presenting itself to the public in a speech of conspiracy very charming and charming; Houdyshell's Count of Gloucestor screaming as his eyes are caught in one of the most disturbing representations of the violence on stage on this side of Inishmore; and Edgar, almost half naked and half crazy, Sean Carvajal screaming on the cold as a cemetery ghost (and a special bravo for the storm effects of the old school, thanks to Jane Cox's flash lighting and to the sound design of Scott Lehrer who, unless there is a tip the current computer trickery, might well make excellent use of sheet metal thunder).

And in what could be the riskiest gambit of production, Wilson is also the Fool – that's the tradition – suggesting a grumpy music hall comic strip combined with Chaplin's Little Tramp and a Cockney accent to use super-titles. A bit disappointing at first, the performance grew in strength, vitality and even intensity, as if Wilson and the director Gold had decided that only a truly decisive approach could withstand the force of nature that is Jackson. They choose wisely.

Wilson, whose voice is as elastic, young and sparkling as Jackson's is serious and serious, is entrusted with one of Gold's most powerful theatrical ideas at the end of the play, while the Booby s # As she prepares to take leave, Cordelia will return soon (in any case). black pseudo-Marxist revolutionary outfit, no less). Scholars have long wondered if the madman is really Cordelia in disguise, and judging by a simple telling twist, Gold suggests that he has the answer. This is not the first or the last moment of truth of this extraordinary production.