Brought to us by the CCP and in partnership with Ayala Cinemas, the National Theatre (UK) Live series has been a wonderful set of filmed plays enhanced by multiple camera angles and strategic close-ups. The April installment was a production of King Lear that dates back to 2018 but was noteworthy for having Sir Ian McKellen in the title role, in what he proclaimed was his swan song in taking on such physically demanding lead characters. Lear is essential to Shakespeare, and it’s such a grand play that we don’t see many taking it on and making local adaptations - so to watch this Shakespeare masterpiece with Sir Ian McKellen is a definite treat. 

While it is a period tragedy, director Jonathan Munby elected to do this in modern dress. It’s a deep, textured examination of political will and machinations, personal ambition, the reliance on the stars, portents, and Fortune, and the connection between lust, honor, pride, and envy. Above all, it’s a tour de force of acting, as only Ian McKellen can deliver, and it astonishes us. 

For the younger audience, it may be easy to forget McKellen’s acting provenance and know about him solely via his Hollywood forays as Magneto in X-Men or as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film franchises. Like Sir John Gielgud (in Star Wars)or Patrick Stewart (in Star Trek and X-Men), McKellen would be handpicked for Hollywood precisely because of their exemplary stage work and facility in taking on Shakespeare roles. The grandness of the above film franchises required actors who would not be dwarfed by the roles and, as in Shakespeare, create something larger than life but still with connection and resonance. 

In the case of King Lear, McKellen transported us as his Lear would, in turn, be imperial and regal, then narcissistic and trivial. We would follow him through disappointment at his daughters and the depression that would creep in. Sir Ian captured the madness, dementia, resignation, despair, and eventual fragility etched in his face and with lines delivered with such pregnant meaning.

Just as astounding was the role's physicality—how he’d have to perform in the onstage rain and storm, be silly and childish, and even carry Cordelia at one point towards the end of the tragedy. That McKellen was doing all this at his age left my mouth hanging in admiration. 

Parallel to the Lear and three daughters' situation, we have the subplot of Gloucester, his own version of wronged son Edgar, and the scheming bastard son Edmund. Watching Goneril and Regan conspire to put their father at a disadvantage and box out their youngest sister, Cordelia, was a lesson on family politics and the reality of jealousy and resentment in families. It makes it only more amazing that Shakespeare was writing in Elizabethan times, and yet the dramas are still so relevant to this day - plus how modern dress further highlights this fact. 

Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch shows on May 28, the last in this year’s National Theatre Live series. This Hamlet was staged in 2015, but Cumberbatch is always an interesting choice for the Danish Prince, and I know I’ll be watching it.