King Lear Revival 2004

If Hamlet is the reward an actor gets for showing great promise in his youth, King Lear is the thank you he receives in the latter years of a distinguished career.  At age 35, Sam Waterston's Hamlet became one of the iconic performances to come out of the New York Shakespeare Festival.  Now, at 71, The Public Theater's gift for his decades of admirable stage work is the opportunity to essay the maddening royal whose rages against a perceived betrayal by the mosT Loving of his three daughters sets in motion the bloody collapse of a monarchy.  Unfortunately, the gift has not been wrapped very attractively.