King Lear is one of Shakespeare's greatest characters, and probably the hardest to perform. He is a king, a father, a madman, all in one. He is more: a man in touch with the great forces of Nature, a man whose oncoming madness and rage are reflected by nature in a terrible thunderstorm, a man who speaks habitually to the gods. An actor, must have great and special powers to do anything like justice to the part. William Devlin does; his Lear is a tremendous performance, fully worthy of Shakespeare's tremendous creation.

It is curious that Devlin should be so completely successful in capturing the heart of Lear. I don't think that he is a transcendently great actor outside of Lear. His performance as Mac-both, which the Brattle Theatre is putting on concurrently with "King Lear," is no more than good. Many actors, I am sure, could equal his job in this play, and not a few could do better.

But as Lear, there is no gainsaying him. The only objection that can be raised against him is that he overplays--and only the cold at heart, those unwilling to suspend disbelief, can say this. In a sense he does overplay: his Lear speaks often in great half-sobs, often raises his arms to heaven, often staggers about the stage. If Lear were an ordinary man, Devlin would stand convicted of the grossest heroics. But Lear is not ordinary: his rages are monumental, 'his sufferings monumental. One must overplay, overreach oneself to attain such lofty heights--Devlin does.

The rest of the cast seems to me to have improved since the Brattle last put on "Lear" with Devlin in 1950. Thayer David does as fine a job as I have ever seen him do in the role of Gloucester. Jerry Kilty, as the Fool, is brilliant--he manages to make something out of a character that is almost impossible to put over to modern audiences. Likewise, to a lesser degree, does Paul Sparer make something out of nothing--he brings a real personality to the simple, unsubtle Kent. Robert Fletcher as Edgar and Albert Duclos as Oswald round out my list of fine jobs.

On the other hand, I thought Al Marre's Edmund was shallow in conception and sloppy in execution. Nancy Marchand was not up to Jan Farrand's earlier performance as Regan, and Miss Farrand herself was not sweet and simple enough as Cordelia. Cavada Humphrey, I think, missed the viper quality in Goneril.