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.
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.
It's often said that there's no greater grief than a parent's loss of a child, so it follows that there's no more devastating moment in King Lear than when the monarch's pitiless odyssey through familial betrayal, rage and madness, triggered by his own blind vanity, leaves him cradling the dead body of the one daughter whose love for him was pure. That goes double when the title character's tragic arc is explored, in Sam Gold's aggressively modern, gender-blind production, by the magnificent Glenda Jackson. The searing pathos of Lear's abject diminishment seems all the more powerful given the steely authority that precedes it.
1754 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1905 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1906 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1907 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1907 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1907 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1909 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1911 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1915 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1917 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1918 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1923 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1930 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1930 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1947 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1950 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1962 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
1968 | Broadway |
Broadway |
1973 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
1978 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
1982 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
1990 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
1996 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2004 | Broadway |
Lincoln Center Revival Broadway |
2006 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2007 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2011 | Off-Broadway |
Public Theater Production Off-Broadway |
2014 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2014 | Off-Broadway |
Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park Off-Broadway |
2016 | West End |
Old Vic Revival Production West End |
2018 | West End |
Chichester Festival Theatre West End Revival West End |
2019 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
2023 | West End |
West End |
2024 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
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 |
Videos