Home > Shakespearean Criticism > King Lear (Vol. 83) - Ben Brantley (review date 12 September 2002)
King Lear (Vol. 83) - Ben Brantley (review date 12 September 2002)
Ben Brantley (review date 12 September 2002)
SOURCE: Brantley, Ben. “Every Inch a King, Every Moment a Revelation.” New York Times (12 September 2002): E1.
[In the following review of the 2002 Stratford Festival production of King Lear directed by Jonathan Miller, Brantley compliments the clarity, intimate tone, and quick pace of the production, but reserves his highest praise for Christopher Plummer's Lear.]
The words are spoken lightly, a punch line of sorts in a bantering exchange with a fool. Yet even as it leaves the old man's mouth, the phrase seems to return in reproachful echo: “Nothing can be made of nothing.” The smile on King Lear's face melts into cloudedness. Where has he heard those words before?
A stillness descends on the stage of the Festival Theater here as the title character of King Lear, fully embodied by the wonderful Christopher Plummer, savors his own bewilderment in an early scene in...
[The entire page is 1394 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
- Introduction
- Criticism: Overviews And General Studies
- Criticism: Character Studies
- Criticism: Production Reviews
-
Criticism: Themes
- Sears Jayne (essay date spring 1964)
- Dean Frye (essay date March 1965)
- Joseph Wittreich (essay date 1984)
- Cherrell Guilfoyle (essay date 1990)
- June Schlueter (essay date 1995)
- Richard Knowles (essay date spring 1999)
- Susan Viguers (essay date March 2000)
- Michael Edwards (essay date autumn 2000)
- Alan Rosen (essay date 2001)
- Further Reading
- Copyright
