Plummer's "Crack Your Cheeks"

      Today's New York Times has a lengthy article on the Canadian actor Christopher Plummer to mark the occasion of Plummer's return to Broadway with Jonathan Miller's production of King Lear, a restaging of their Lear from Stratford two years ago. (Fact is, the Stratford production was always a rehearsal for a Broadway performance more than it was an exclusive for the festival's fiftieth anniversary.) That production has some pretty serious problems, mostly I think due to Miller's awkward conceptualization, but Plummer was excellent. The assertion, though, that is they can take care of the comedy, the tragedy would take care of itself, proved rather misguided at Stratford.

      The Times article, unfortunately, doesn't seem especially interested in the Lear, preferring more to hover over Plummer's stature as a reformed acting bad-boy and the legacy of Plummer's role as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. I do find it interesting that the article makes very little of Plummer's voice which, it seems to me, has always been one of his greatest qualities, a voice with Gielgud-like sonoriety but Olivier-like masculinity. I can think of no major actor still alive who could do a better Lear, who could imbue the part with both majesty and brokenness, who could rip the paint of the back of the theatre's walls with pure vocal force, particularly during the all-important scenes upon the heath. Not Paul Scofield, who always seemed a bit too reserved for the part; not Albert Finney, who in recent years has been giving himself over to hammy self-caricature (despite his brilliant take on Donald Wolfit doing Lear in The Dresser), as has Anthony Hopkins; Alan Bates has since passed on, as has Richard Harris; Derek Jacobi is a fine actor, but Lear is just not a part suited to his dramatic demeanour; Ian Holm was surprisingly good as Lear in a BBC production some years ago, but he lacks the physical stature to suggest an appropriate titanism. My mind skims through the Americans, but I can think of no one there, either. Certainly none of the big names: Pacino, Hoffman, De Niro, Hackman; no, I can't see any of them doing the part well, except possibly Hackman, but, no, not even Hackman. I can't think of an actor like, say, Jason Robards still alive and acting who could handle the part well. This blog would have liked to have seen the late E.G. Marshall assay the role, but, alas, it never came to pass. Another actor who could have done the part quite well, but sadly passed on some time ago: Sir Anthony Quayle. Yes, Anthony Quayle. When was the last time you saw that name mentioned on a blog? Now that would have been a fiery performance.

      But, alas, it seems Mr. Plummer is in a class by himself, or at least a very, very small class indeed. Let's just hope the Broadway production finds a better Cordelia than the horrible one they had at Stratford. "The Sound of Mucus," though, is a good line. I'll have to remember that...