Page 73 - King Lear: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

Ixviii KIN G LEAR
Osmond Tearle's production in 1890, Benson produced
the play and acted Lear to his wife's Cordelia in 1902,
1
1904, and 1906, but, thinks J. C. Trewin, was never at
his best in the part; Matheson Lang was Edmund in
1902. Under Bridges-Adams it was again the birthday
play in 1924 with Arthur Phillips as Lear; Baliol Hollo-
way played Kent, and Dorothy Green was Goneril.
Four years in the 1930's saw Randle Ayrton, probably
the best of the Stratford Lears*—in 1931 and I932with
Bridges-Adams producing; in 1936 and 1937 in
Komisarjevsky's two productions, Donald Wolfit being
the Kent in the first of them, and Eric Maxon the
Gloucester as in 1931 (he had acted as Edgar in 1924).
In 1943 Abraham Sofaer acted Lear as his first appear-
ance in Stratford—the production Peter Cresswell's;
and in 1950 John Gielgud came to Stratford in the part
with Alan Badel as the Fool; Peggy Ashcroft was
Cordelia, and Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies now played
Regan. In the 1953 production Michael Redgrave and
Yvonne Mitchell were Lear and Cordelia. 3
In America the earliest known performances were in
New York and Philadelphia in 1754 by Lewis Hallam's
company, his wife playing Cordelia to Malone's Lear.
The first memorable tragedian in the part was J. B.
Booth, who acted Lear from 1821 to 1852; but his
greater contemporary, Edwin Forrest, outdid this
record, spanning forty-five years from 1826 in his
renderings. Eddy overlapped the latter in seven seasons
1
See T. C. Kemp and J. C. Trewin, The Stratford
Festival (1953), p. 62.
2
Cf. Muriel C. Day and J. C. Trewin, The Stratford
Memorial Theatre (1932), p. 216; Ruth Ellis, The Stratford
Memorial Theatre (1948), p. 64; T. C. Kemp in his and
J. C. Trewin's op. cit. p. 165.
3
See T. C. Kemp's 'Acting Shakespeare: Modern
Tendencies', in Shakespeare Survey, 7 (1954), 127.