Mert Dilek — Theater Critic

Branagh’s central performance is ultimately, and surprisingly, underwhelming in its psychologically discontinuous presentation of Lear. Like many in the cast, he either overaccentuates or underpitches his delivery, vacillating between extremes of emotion without fully inhabiting the part’s profound subtleties. Especially in the play’s first half, his oscillations between capricious, bombastic king and bruised father often feel abrupt and synthetic.