King Sam

I had the good fortune to see the Public Theatre production of King Lear, with Sam Waterston. King Lear has long been my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, for its so many wonderful observations about the world into which we are thrown; yet I have never seen it performed, not even the famous filmed versions. Read it, then. And I'll eat no fish!

I couldn't be happier with this version as my first, then. Long a fan of Sam Waterston, I loved him as Lear. Seth Giilliam (Carter from The Wire) plays Edmund. the villain of the piece, but I think not entirely so. Shakespeare often seems to be promoting a rationalist view ("The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings,"). Edmund is the one who enunciates this view: and yet, he is without (shall we say) the milk of human kindness. I often wonder if HS objected to his times' view of the whole "legitimacy" matter. One tends to think yes. Wouldn't Edmund, so clever, be a different and better man had he not been "tainted"?

It's an odd tragedy, in that there are two (not only one) left alive on the stage at its end. But it is so worth your time. So many good lines. So much understanding of human nature.

"Can'st not tell me, Nuncle?"

Lear, who errs in the first scene, earns our sympathy and our pity. Justly. Shakespeare, as usual, triumphs.

PS: as my son observed, Sam Waterston acts largely with his eyebrows. That doesn't bother me. I love him.