Glenda Jackson, just coming off her run in Three Tall Women on Broadway, has already set the date of her return.
Jackson will appear as the title character in King Lear in the play's Broadway run next year.
Jackson is no stranger to this role, playing it previously in 2016 at London's Old Vic. The Broadway production will be entirely different, with new staging.
There are any number of quotes from King Lear that one might employ to kick off a discussion of how fully Glenda Jackson embodies William Shakespeare's disintegrating ruler. 'Every inch a King,' might do, though it is spoken ironically in Act IV, when things have fallen well apart. Rather, what came to mind not long into a viewing of director Sam Gold's outstanding production of Lear now at New York's Cort Theatre, was the bit of dialogue above, from Terrence McNally's 1994 play Love! Valour! Compassion!. Machismo just begins to graze it. The tragedy of the mad king is a study of masculine power battling its own decline and Jackson, with self-ruinous male ego animating her wiry frame, feasts on the notoriously challenging role.
It should surprise no one that Ms. Jackson is delivering a powerful and deeply perceptive performance as the most royally demented of Shakespeare's monarchs. But much of what surrounds her in this glittery, haphazard production seems to be working overtime to divert attention from that performance. That includes a perfectly lovely string quartet - playing original music by Philip Glass, no less - that under other circumstances I would have enjoyed listening to. Here, though, this intermittent concert seems to be competing with, rather than underscoring, Shakespeare's bleakest tragedy. The same might be said of Miriam Buether's blindingly gold set (lighted to sear the eyes by Jane Cox), which blazes with nouveau riche vulgarity.
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| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play | Ruth Wilson |
| 2019 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Ruth Wilson |
| 2019 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play | King Lear |
| 2019 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Play | Glenda Jackson |
| 2019 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play | Ruth Wilson |
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