For Release: 2009-03-09 12:55:00
Ian McKellen gives a tour-de-force performance as Shakespeare's tragic titular monarch in a television adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company production of King Lear. Part of the Great Performances series, the program airs Wednesday, March 25 at 8/7 p.m. CT on KET1 and KET HD and Sunday, March 29 at 9/8 p.m. CT on KET2.Shakespeare's unrelenting tragedy is widely considered one of the playwright's most enduring and haunting works for the stage. The play opens with Lear's proposal to divide his kingdom among his three daughters, according to how much each can profess her love for him, spiraling forward to dramatize the king's deception, betrayal and eventual descent into madness.
In March 2007, Britain's renowned Royal Shakespeare Company launched a worldwide tour of the work, beginning in the Bard's hometown of Stratford-Upon-Avon. The production was subsequently presented to great critical acclaim at New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music. The telecast, co-directed by Sir Trevor Nunn and Chris Hunt, marks McKellen's return to the Royal Shakespeare Company after a 17-year hiatus, a welcome homecoming that has resulted in this unforgettable performance as Lear.
Great Performances "King Lear" is produced by WNET/New York. More information about KET progr amming and education services, as well as how to support KET, can be found at www.ket.org.
Contact: Ellen Soileau
View or link to a public version of this release.
