One thing was sure from the moment the curtain rose: this King Lear was not the lean, commanding character of Shakespearean tradition. Brought to the stage of Britain's Stratford Memorial Theater by Cinemactor Charles (Mutiny on the Bounty) Laughton last week, King Lear was an eye-rolling, tongue-lolling, hand-scrabbling, dirty old man. Above a billowing green gown that looked like a collapsed circus tent (but still could not hide the hefty Laughton paunch), the famed suet-pudding face was almost obscured by a wild halo of home-grown white whiskers and an unkempt shoulder-length...
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