When last we met, Don and I were going to take a quick rest before heading to The Duke of York’s Theatre to pick up our tickets for King Lear.
We did. Then we dashed across the street to get a quick bite to eat before the show started at 7 pm. Lear is long, usually about three hours, and this production was no exception. Our tickets were in the Royal Circle, which is the first balcony. It isn’t a high balcony and we were seated smack-dab in the center, so it felt like we were right there. Couldn’t have asked for better seats (of course, we picked them out online.) It’s the most I’ve ever spent for a theater ticket. It was worth every penny.
Yours truly holding her program.
I chatted with the person sitting to my right, who happened to be in London on business all the way from Salt Lake City.
Then the lights went down and we were transported for the next three hours.
Let me get my thoughts on the production as conceived and on the supporting cast out of the way. It was in modern dress. Kent, a male character, was played by a woman, the brilliant Sinead Cusack (side note: married to Jeremy Irons) and though I don’t normally go for that kind of thing, with this particular character it worked. She was great. The actor who played Gloucester was also quite good, as well as the actor playing the Fool. The actress playing Goneril, the eldest daughter, was very good. My big issues were with the other two daughters. For some reason, the director and actress playing Regan decided to make her a drug-addled alcoholic with a major personality disorder and none of that was evident in the first scene or two but emerged later in the play and I was left wondering…”What?? Where did that come from?” She had so many ticks, both physical and vocal, that I wanted to scream. The end result was that the text was broken up in a way that made the lines impossible to follow and both Don and I were left with the feeling that it was a totally self-indulgent characterization and performance – the kind of flashy performance that I’m sure some critics loved, but that, in reality, stole focus from the storytelling and wasn’t entirely supported by the text. And the actress who played Cordelia was almost impossible to understand. Why cast someone who can’t articulate well onstage?
But the star was Sir Ian McKellen. He was light years beyond everyone else. He is 79 years old, tackling one of the greatest and hardest roles in Shakespeare and he triumphs.
I’ve never seen anything like it. In my over 40 years in the theater, I have never seen anything as great as that performance. He was simply stunning. As Don said during intermission, “We are witnessing greatness.”
I’ve seen Lear before. I’ve coached it. And I’ve seen very good actors play that role.
But this, this performance, was so beyond anything I have ever seen or hoped to see. Brilliant, heartbreaking, funny, sad, gut-wrenching. Every moment fully realized. Nothing superfluous. Not one self-indulgent moment. Only truth, fully honoring the text and Shakespeare’s words.
The greatest performance I have ever seen.
It was an honor and a privilege to be in the audience that night, seeing a master at work. For he is that. There’s no one better. I count it as one of the peak moments of my life.
The audience roared during the curtain call. How could they not?
Afterwords, we walked outside, and stood there – stunned.
The stage door was just a few feet away and people were gathering to get a glimpse of him. We work in the theater and we’ve worked with a lot of famous people, so we don’t usually do that sort of thing. It always feels awkward to us; we don’t feel comfortable bugging a fellow actor. But we stayed there for a while, holding our programs, thinking that this time we just might break our rule. Other actors came out. Not McKellen. I said to Don, “He must be exhausted. Maybe he snuck out another exit.” But someone told us that a guy had apparently come out – probably the equivalent of a bouncer/bodyguard – and said that McKellen would appear, but he wouldn’t do selfies, etc. He’d just sign programs.
After more time went by, we looked at each other and thought we should probably move on. We walked about 50 feet down the street and heard some noise from the group waiting at the stage door. So we doubled back.
He came out and started signing programs.
I’ve lightened this photo a bit so you can see him.
Eventually, I moved to the right and it looked like he was ready to leave, so I figured he had stopped signing. He met my eyes and reached for my program and signed it. I thanked him for his performance. Don had appeared in the meantime and he looked at Sir Ian and said what he had said to me earlier: “We witnessed greatness tonight.” And Sir Ian looked up at Don and humbly said a quiet “Thank you.”
We were so lucky to have those brief moments with him. I will treasure that memory always.
This is going to get framed. You can bet on it.
Afterwards, we walked around Trafalgar Square, talking about what we had just seen, marveling that we got to see it live, in London. That we got to meet him and speak with him.
The National Gallery.
St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
Then we flagged a cab and headed back to the hotel.
I have a story about that night. A few days later, I got a message on Facebook from a guy that was in my class in graduate school. He was my first acting partner when we studied for our MFAs at Temple University. We graduated in 1986 and I haven’t seen him since then, though we’re friends on Facebook. He lives in Chicago.
The message said: “Claudia! Did you and Don just see Lear in London??? I think I just saw a couple there who looked like you!”
I of course answered that we did and was he there?? He was. With his wife. He has family in London and he had purchased his tickets months ago and was waiting out front for his cousin when he thought he saw us walking away from the theater to get something to eat. He looked for us during intermission and when he didn’t see us, he thought he must have imagined it. In fact, he had wanted to run after us when he saw us before the show but his cousin had the tickets and he didn’t want to miss him.
What are the odds that we would both be at the same performance of King Lear in London over 32 years after we graduated from Temple??? I’m so sorry we didn’t connect! So was he. He agreed that it was ‘the performance of a lifetime.’
A few days after that I saw him tagged in a post on Facebook written by his wife. They were celebrating their anniversary in Paris, just as we had celebrated ours in Paris the week before.
More evidence that it is indeed a small world.
Happy Friday.
