What is the best production of King Lear?

Answer 1

I assume you are not asking which was the best stage production, since stage productions are ephemeral, and even if they were great, you cannot go back and revisit them. So let's talk about recorded performances.

My personal favourite stars Ian Holm and was produced by the Royal National Theatre company and filmed by BBC in 1998, reissued in the Americas by WGBH Boston in 2004. The settings and costumes are very simple and do not distract from the truly wonderful acting all around.

But if you don't like your Shakespeare straight up, you might consider Sir Laurence Olivier's version recorded for television in 1984, which has a bit more realistic set and has some great performances from a first-rate cast. Some people think Olivier was past it at this point in his career; I have the opposite viewpoint.

Considered by many the classic version of King Lear is Peter Brook's production starring Paul Scofield. Made in 1970 in black-and-white, it portrays an iron-age society in a grim, bare, rocky, snow-covered landscape. Lear and those around him are tough, brutal and unfeeling. This play is as much about Lear discovering that he has feeling as anything else. (But then, isn't the play about him discovering his humanity?)

Another influencial version made at about the same time and also in black-and-white is in Russian, directed by Grigori Kozintsev. It stars Estonian sctor Juri Jarvet in the title role. There is also a feeling of desolation as in the Brook production, but this one brings out more of the social relationship of a king to his people, and of the commonality of all people no matter what their social status, surely a very important theme in the play.

Watch these four versions and decide for yourself.

As for other recorded versions, those starring Ian McKellen, James Earl Jones and a silent version by Frederick Warde are adequate and have moments of interest. I wouldn't bother with those starring Orson Welles, Patrick Magee, Michael Hordern or Brian Blessed.