Like Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex," with which it shares so much harrowing wisdom, Shakespeare's "King Lear" defines tragic grandeur for us. And it's old-fashioned acting grandeur that Ian McKellen showcases in the UCLA Live presentation of the Royal Shakespeare Company touring production, which opened Friday at Royce Hall.
The chance to see a knighted British veteran of the classical stage -- glorious Gandalf from the "Lord of the Rings" series -- tackle what is arguably the greatest role in Western drama has fetched astronomical sums for prime seats on the scalper market. (McKellen's supporting turn in Chekhov's "The Seagull," which is running in repertory, is eliciting a somewhat less frenzied response.) Let the EBay buyer beware, however: Trevor Nunn's staging of "King Lear" is broad and brittle. As for the performance of its star, McKellen's towering portrait of the aged, raging monarch has what can be paradoxically described as an early-20th century freshness.
Laurence Olivier left us a TV-film version of his psychologically astute, slyly comic and ultimately devastating Lear. But McKellen's characterization evokes Olivier's contemporary Donald Wolfit, a barnstorming force of nature whose power reportedly had less to do with modern introspection than the brute passions that are the hallmark of timeless drama.
Similarly disposed, McKellen's Lear gusts across the stage like an angry wind. With a howling voice that can swoop and swerve at will and a ready aura of outraged majesty, he starts off as a petulant, spoiled old fool and ends up a raving Jeremiah. The scale of the performance is appropriately monumental. The play, after all, has a sweep as panoramic as Michelangelo's "The Last Judgment" and a collar-grabbing intensity that bears comparison with Beethoven's Fifth. It's darkly awesome stuff, especially when the hotheaded patriarch unleashes imprecations on his betraying daughters from an inner abyss.
Technical virtuosity has always been McKellen's signature strength and weakness, and the Olympian challenge here puts both on display. The choices he makes -- from the surprising inflections he gives familiar lines to the way he can punctuate a moment with a simple prop -- are unfailingly vivid, but they occasionally underscore themselves, as though marking their own brilliance.
