SOURCE: Brantley, Ben. “Every Inch a King, Every Moment a Revelation.” New York Times (12 September 2002): E1.

In the following review of the 2002 Stratford Festival production of King Lear directed by Jonathan Miller, Brantley compliments the clarity, intimate tone, and quick pace of the production, but reserves his highest praise for Christopher Plummer's Lear.

The words are spoken lightly, a punch line of sorts in a bantering exchange with a fool. Yet even as it leaves the old man's mouth, the phrase seems to return in reproachful echo: “Nothing can be made of nothing.” The smile on King Lear's face melts into cloudedness. Where has he heard those words before?

A stillness descends on the stage of the Festival Theater here as the title character of King Lear, fully embodied by the wonderful Christopher Plummer, savors his own bewilderment in an early scene in Shakespeare's bleakest tragedy. It is...