When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah?

Steve Smith reviews the impossible-to-get-tickets-to RSC Lear with Ian McKellen, and, in the same post, Society co-conspirator Sam Sadigursky's record release hit at Cornelia Street -- both of which I very much wish I could have seen.

Thanks to a friend in the cast, I saw a different high-profile Lear back in the spring -- the Public Theater's staging, with Kevin Kline in the lead. It would have been fascinating to compare the performances of these two brilliant interpreters, especially with Kline's Lear still (somewhat) fresh in my mind.

A footnote: I've often wondered what the canonical classical and operatic rep would sound like if we approached it with the freedom and vigor of the best contemporary Shakespeare stagings. And I shudder to think how unenjoyable Shakespeare would be if the historically informed performance crowd ran the theater world -- we'd be stuck with boys in female roles and performers bound by some academic historian's notion of what acting might have been like in Shakespeare's day.