Thursday, January 08, 2009

King cover-up


It doesn't bother Ian McKellen, and in a way it doesn't bother me, as I saw it in the flesh, as it were. (He's no Daniel Radcliffe up there, as he would almost certainly agree.) But the fact is he was naked in his mad scene in his King Lear, and PBS is doing the production a disservice by omitting it. (I assume it was filmed clothed, as Lear without the mad scene is like peanut butter without jelly.) The scene is about derangement, not titillation or "wardrobe malfunction," and I would expect the FCC and community standards-bearers to understand artistic nuance. Or am I the mad one? Not that I want to knock ever-bedraggled public television, but it lacks the balls McKellen amply showed onstage.

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