Summary 
Tightly focused production plays on an expansive stage with a powerhouse performance by Christopher Plummer as an Alzheimer-inflicted Lear. The cerebral King falters in dramatic fits and starts between keenly aware and grossly arrogant before falling into insanity and re-emerging - tragically too late - as a father seeking forgiveness. Sparse staging but an expert ensemble anchored by the brilliant lead performance.
Design
Directed by Jonathan Miller. Costumes by Clare Mitchell. Lights by Robert Thomson. Sound by Peter McBoyle. Compositions by Berthold Carriere.
Cast
Christopher Plummer (King Lear), Domini Blythe (Goneril), Lucy Peacock (Regan), Sarah McVie (Cordelia), Ian Deakin (Albany), Stephen Russell (Cornwall), Benedict Campbell (Kent), James Blendick (Gloucester), Maurice Godin (Edmund), Evan Buliung (Edgar), Barry MacGregor (Fool), Brian Tree (Oswald).
Analysis
Criticized by Canadian press for his "non-direction," Jonathan Miller expertly guides a talented cast and Shakespeare's language to evoke the tragedy of King Lear. Miller directs with subtlety, paying keen attention to timing and vocal emphasis, and eschewing theatrics and melodrama. The production, minimally staged with few props and set pieces, is warmly lit in glowing yellow, the costumes richly detailed but suitably muted in color. Apart from an original score and musical fanfares, this Lear is sparsely rendered, but thanks to Miller and a skilled ensemble, powerfully realized.
Christopher Plummer commands this King Lear in a remarkable performance. His highly intelligent but tragically arrogant Lear is a fading giant, by turns sympathetic and abhorrent, as when he rejects Kent's concern for his horrific 1.1 coughing jag by shoving him aside and spitting on him. When Plummer's Lear first arrives onstage, supported by the Fool, the stage lights rise and the entire cast bows before his presence. With an unkempt white beard, ill-groomed gray hair, and puffy eyes, Plummer's elderly King seems to suffer from Alzheimer's disease. Attempting to hold court, he twice fails to recall Burgundy's name, each time assisted by the empathetic Kent, and when he cannot remember a third time, he pounds a wooden table in frustration. After banishing both Kent and Cordelia in a pique of anger, he covers his face in his hands, hunched with confusion and grief at the center stage table.
Kent, his loyalty unbroken, accepts his banishment but immediately returns in 1.4, his long hair shorn, his unruly beard trimmed, and wearing the cap and filthy clothing of a countryside peasant. He confronts Lear's soldiers, with their rifles and swords, showing the same resolve and courage that, due to his age, Plummer's Lear can display only in fits and starts. Kent stands by his King, who hurls a staff in anger at the rejection by Goneril ("prepare my horses!") then raises his arms in wordless despair. After Kent assails Oswald and is placed in the stocks - again with acceptance, handing his sword and staff to his jailers - Lear mocks the mumbling Cornwall, his hands shaking with rage, then pounds the chest of the feather-capped Fool. Lightning strikes amid thunder claps, the storm rising as the production reaches its interval.
The black-clad Edmund seems an ambitious opportunist. He prowls the darkened stage and silently inspects Gloucester's desk and chair in a spotlight glare. He appears mortified by his father's casual comment that he "will soon away again" and lurks in a doorway after 1.1 to observe Goneril and Regan dismiss their husbands with disdainful waves of their hands. He speaks to Gloucester as if addressing a child and sighs with condescension at the arrival of the good-hearted Edgar. Edmund, always expressive, throws his foot upon his father's desk as he reveals his plots in 1.2 soliloquy, twirls at Edgar's remark that "some villain has done me wrong," and raises a single eyebrow in silent appreciation of his opponent's prowess in the 5.3 duel.
Shadows swirl like gathering storm clouds across the stage in 3.4 as a Christ-like Edgar - disguised as Tom O'Bedlam - grasps for bugs in the air and barks like a hound at an approaching lantern. Edgar wears a crown of thorns and has streaks of blood across his chest and broken arrows protruding from his flesh. Defending his father much as Kent defends Lear, he kills Oswald in 4.6, then drags the corpse off stage by one arm.
Goneril and Regan admire the darkness of Edmund - "the difference between man and man" - and both openly desire him physically. Regan plucks a hair from Gloucester's beard in 3.7, conceives the idea to pluck the eyes from the man at the same moment as Cornwall, and refuses to take the arm of her mortally wounded husband. Goneril fans herself in disgust at Kent's 1.1 loyalty, and her carnal kiss of Edmund in 4.2 seems a repudiation of both Albany and propriety.
The supporting cast is strong, but Plummer's King Lear fuels Miller's production. Wearing a wildflower garland in 4.6, he clutches his behind at "every inch a King" and thrusts his hips at "let copulation thrive!" With his royalty being stripped away in pieces, he sincerely wishes to wipe his hand clean before Gloucester kisses it and takes the blinded man by the ear to "show" him "how this world goes with no eyes," then pokes him in the ribs to reveal the joke. Plummer's Lear, reduced by ingratitude, stamps his feet and succumbs to fits of giggles. When the French soldiers arrive in 4.7, he flees like a child playing a chase game, chanting "sah sah sah" as he scurries off stage.
Captured and returned to the stage in a stretcher-like chair for 5.3, Plummer's King has finally regained his wits and become a man as he attempts to kneel in seeking the forgiveness of Cordelia. He returns ("howl! howl!") in anguish, pulling her corpse in a shroud behind him. In a heartbreaking conclusion, Lear caresses Cordelia's cheek ("stay a little") and repeats "never!" as he begins to die. With a final tragic hallucination that his daughter yet lives, he leans slightly backward and expires with his eyes still open.
Miller's astute reliance upon his ensemble, especially the charismatic Plummer, is perhaps more suitable to a more intimate space such as the Festival's black box theatre, but nonetheless makes for a compelling and memorable King Lear.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.21, No.2, Spring/Summer 2003.