logo

Video encyclopedia

11/02/2004 Christopher Plummer begins performances of 'King Lear'

7:15

Christopher Plummer on King Lear (Part 18 of 44)

9:26

Christopher Plummer on Jonathan Miller's Lear (Part 12 of 44)

4:19

Christopher Plummer on a speech in King Lear (Part 41 of 44)

Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” so grand in its scope, so dark in its vision, is not a play about a single man. Playing the maddened and maddening title character, Christopher Plummer gives a performance of such purity and truth that it lays instant and entire claim to our hearts and minds; there’s not much compassion left for anyone else, so powerful is our engagement in Lear’s physical and intellectual dissolution amid the harrowing storms of life.