The Theater: Four of a Kind

Broadway, having its most old-fashioned Christmas in years, revived plays that were first produced in 1606, in 1883, in 1900 and in 1932:

King Lear (by William Shakespeare; produced by Robert L. Joseph & Alexander H. Cohen) is possibly the greatest single achievement in all literature—and the greatest stumbling block known to the stage. The play's scope, declared the late great Critic A. C. Bradley, is too vast for any stage to encompass; while Charles Lamb contended that the title role cannot be acted, that Lear's greatness is inward and "intellectual," and that when...