SOURCE: Brantley, Ben. Review of King John. The New York Times CXLII, no. 49,449 (9 September 1993): C16.

In the following review of Robin Phillips's 1993 production of King John at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Brantley notes the director's focus on John as the central element of the play and praises the performance's psychological insights, but finds its World War I setting unnecessarily confusing.

Of all of Shakespeare's titular monarchs, poor, weak-willed King John has always been the ungainly step-child. The play that bears his name, a bafflingly amphibious blend of history and tragedy, was seldom performed in this century until relatively recently. And most productions and analyses of The Life and Death of King John have tended to emphasize the more dynamic character of the Bastard, the patriotic son of Richard the Lion-Hearted, over John himself, who has all of Macbeth's infirmity of purpose with none of his more Olympian qualities...