(Editor’s note: Dusted off from the Wellesnet archive. Orson Welles wrote about King Lear for the January 8, 1956 edition of The New York Times shortly before the play opened at the New York City Center. He mentioned, in passing that King Lear hadn’t been presented on the New York stage for five years, but fails to note that his old partner, John Houseman was the man who directed the 1950 presentation at the National Theater starring Louis Calhern as Lear. Housesman’s version, like Welles’ own production, featured music by Marc Blitzstein, as well as several actors from the Mercury Theatre. In fact, Houseman’s staging of King Lear had more Mercury actors than Welles own production. Everett Sloane was slated to play the fool, until he clashed with Louis Calhern and resigned. He was replaced by Norman Lloyd. Martin Gabel played the Earl of Kent; Nina Foch was Cordelia; Joesph Wiseman was Edmund and both Wesley Addy, who played Edgar and Arnold Moss, who played the Earl of Gloucester would go on to act with Welles (but playing different roles), in the Peter Brook TV version of broadcast in 1953.) 

‘Tackling King Lear’

By ORSON WELLES

Many critics consider “King Lear” not only the most difficult but also the greatest of Shakespeare’s works, and all to many of these critics have added that it is impossible to act the play in a theatre. In a profound sense, this may be at least partly true, but such a negative opinion is surely of poor service to the theatre itself, whose skyline can scarcely afford the loss of so sizable an edifice.

Without denying at all the solitary intoxication’s and heady delights the dramatic poem offers to the reader, one must acknowledge that no matter what losses “King Lear” may suffer at the hands of actors, it was for actors that the play was written that all its effects were intended.

We of the theatre may never manage the beginning of any sort of justice to this towering and tremendous work, but it is clearly up to us to make a brave try at it just as often as we may.

The trouble is that our attempts are all too few and much too far between. In England, I can think of at least six major productions of “King Lear” since World War II. New York has had fewer than that to boast of since the turn of the century. A number of friends, wise in the ways of Broadway, have been at pains to point out to me the folly of choosing to present — even for two weeks at the City Center — another production of this play a bare five years after it was last seen by the town.

It was by no means easy to reject so much well-meaning and expert advice, but the simple truth is that I am not getting any younger, and if Lear must wear long white whiskers, by a grim paradox, few actors capable of growing such a beard are still physically capable of getting through the role. In the whole Shakespearean canon, there is no more demanding assignment, and in all dramatic literature, there is no old man for which a young man’s energies are so urgently indicated.
It strikes me, after almost a quarter of a century in theatre service, as high time that I make my first attempt at the play and the role. If I don’t now, when — at least in America — will I be able to do it again?

If a man can get anywhere close to “King Lear,” be must have a good go at it more than twice. Sir John Gielgud has performed the old thunderer in no less than five productions, each separated from the other by several seasons and each marking a new and distinct phase in the development of the life and work of that distinguished artist. Without pretending to deserve Sir John’s opportunities, I must confess to a most acute need for them.

Even if my fond project of founding a classical repertory theatre on Broadway should become the most fruitful fact, let playgoers be well assured that I would not impose a half-dozen of my Lears on them. On the other hand, let those who would come to hear, see and judge this year’s essay remember that there are no tenors who would care to be remembered for their first season’s “Tristan” and few bassos whose “Boris Godunov” was born at full scale in the first opera house where it was attempted. No alibis are offered here for the inadequacy of this year’s “King Lear.” Rather, I’ve tried to point toward our glaring lack of a permanent theatre dedicated to poetic drama.

It is to help build and operate such an institution that I came back to Broadway.  We were to start with a repertory of two plays, “King Lear” and    Jonson’s “Volpone.” My producers — Messrs. Margolis and Gabel — were persuaded’ by Miss Jean Dalrymple to forego commercial consideration in the interests of a short season at the City Center, whose budget unhappily cannot be stretched to include “Volpone.”

It should be easy to see why I would have been more at ease if had been possible for me to present my credentials as a classical theatre man to a new generation of New York playgoers with two productions instead of one. I can only hope that if this new “Lear” should be considered redundant after all, such an opinion will not extend to, or discourage, our hopes for the founding, as soon as may be, of a solid theatre establishment.

 *  * *Below is a nearly six-minute excerpt from Welles’ New York stage production of  King Lear, as performed live on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 5, 1956. Welles had sprained his ankles and he relies on a crutch when he approaches Sullivan at the end.

 

For more information on Welles City Center production of KING LEAR, including the original playbill, see this link at Wellesnet: www.wellesnet.com/learindex.htm  

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