King Lear

After watching this production of King Lear I can appreciate more and more what the BBC did in giving good productions to all the Shakespeare plays. Sad to say this has become badly dated.

Not to criticize Orson Welles who would have made a magnificent King Lear in a full blown big budget production for the big screen. He fills the role out fine here. But the production is a cut rate version literally.

Everything in the way of a subplot is a eliminated here. We only see what happens to that foolish old king when he decides to turn over power to his daughters and their husbands because he wants to enjoy a little peace and quiet. As Shakespeare said in another of his works "uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" and King Lear is looking for a life of some ease toward the end. As we know it all went disastrously wrong.

Alan Badel as the fool also stands out with his sly trenchant comments about the situation at hand. This was Orson Welles television debut and it was on the Omnibus program with Alastair Cooke's silky and intellectual narration. It also has the prehistoric look of early television.

You will see Orson Welles doing Shakespeare to better advantage in his own production of Othello, a bit less so in his MacBeth where Republic's penny pinching Herbert J. Yates constricted him considerably. But fans of Welles will definitely enjoy this.

In spite of the shortcomings of this production, the play reduced to a third, a budget production for TV with very limited stage room and a number of characters missing, this is an astounding production, not only for Orson Welles being one of the best Lears ever, but all the actors are excellent, and I have never seen a better fool of Lear's than Alan Badel, here still quite young. In spite of the limited TV studio assets, several of the scenes provide spectacular scenarios, especially the banquet scene at Goneril's, and what a marvellousd idea to make the hut on the moor into a windmill! The TV film standard is also miserable in its stone age flaws, but Peter Brook has made an excellent job of the direction and the editing of the play. The one thing that is not excellent is the music, which is too modern and experimental to suit the 16th century costumes and Celtic settings. Orson Welles always celebrated triumphs as an actor, and there could hardly be found any role more suited for his majestic greatness and wide range of stage ability than this one.

This version of "King Lear" is worth seeing despite a low-budget look and some significant omissions from the original play. Orson Welles could do as much as anyone could with limited resources, and the rest of the cast perform their parts well enough - which is important, because the acting really has to carry this version almost by itself.

The concise version of the story about Lear and his daughters, which may have been affected by broadcasting constraints, leaves out some interesting and important characters who are meant to complement the main part of the story. Likewise, it probably could have been much more absorbing if they had devoted just a little more time and expenditure on the meager sets. Still, the main story is more than adequate when it is told well, and Welles always gives a distinctive interpretation to a weighty character like Lear.

Overall, this cannot be considered as one of the very best filmed versions of the play, since the accommodations made for television are all too obvious. But it is worth seeing, as it brings out the most important ideas in the play, and has some strengths of its own.

The film is in black and white video, and takes liberties with the plot. The Duke of Gloucester and his evil son Edmund, major characters in the play, are absent from the film. Orson Welles' King Lear costume makes him look like a refugee from Mystery Science Theater 3000.

This production was performed Live on the Omnibus TV series, which was the fore-runner to much of what PBS has become. The actors were directed by Peter Brook in 3 whirlwind weeks, and it features incidental music by Virgil Thompson... an impressive array of talent. It centers on a bravura performance by Welles in the title role, although Alan Badel also shines as the Fool.

Shot on a circular, 6-segment set with 2 cameras that traveled around the perimeter, it required innovative camera-work, especially at the end of scenes, where one camera had to sneak off to the next set to begin the following scene. The lighting is very contrasty and daring, sometimes even flaring the camera (unheard of for TV lighting). The confrontation between Lear and his two wicked daughters, for instance, is handled on one camera, very tight on Lear framed by the profiles of the daughters. The camera moves inches to the left or right, deftly shifting the dramatic axis of the scene moment by moment.

The production manager told me that during rehearsals, the prop man approached him in an agitated state, saying, "I just talked to Orson. For the mad scene, he wants a crown of thorns. Like Christ's... only bigger."