England Hails Its Newest Acting King

Actor Robert Stephens is being hailed here as the theatrical successor to the late Laurence Olivier for his performance in what many consider to be Shakespeare’s most demanding role, King Lear.

In ecstatic reviews, London critics ran out of superlatives last week to describe the 62-year-old Stephens’ portrayal of the aging monarch in a four-hour Royal Shakespeare Company production at Stratford-Upon-Avon.

The acclaim signals the most remarkable theatrical comeback in recent years. Stephens, a young lion of the British theater in the 1960s, had seen his career go into decline in the 1980s.

On this occasion, the actor emerged from the sickbed--a foot infection had caused him to miss the scheduled opening night early in the week--to thrill the audience two days later.

Of his performance, Jack Tinker, the tough and respected critic of the Daily Mail, declared: “Robert Stephens scales the summit of Shakespeare’s Everest role. His Lear is from the start unusual in every aspect, and finally a triumph of awesome proportions.”

Benedict Nightingale in the Times wrote: “His Lear makes a spiritual journey, looking beyond his personal wrongs to see the injustices endured by others and feeling beyond his own pain to share the suffering of lesser beings. . . . How movingly that hoarse, fruity voice can express simple tenderness for the world’s ‘poor naked wretches.’ ”

In the Evening Standard, Nicholas de Jongh wrote: “Stephens’ Lear works as a study of love and trust betrayed. And how poignantly.”

The Standard even devoted a short editorial to the demanding performance, acclaimed as the finest in a generation.

The praise comes as sweet music to the mercurial Stephens, whose theatrical and cinematic career has been checkered.

In the 1960s, he gave a series of dazzling performances at the National Theatre, where he was seen as Olivier’s heir presumptive. With his then-wife, actress Maggie Smith, he formed a formidable team, the theater’s most famous of the time. They appeared together on the stage in Noel Coward’s “Private Lives” and on the screen in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.”

Other films he appeared in included “A Taste of Honey,” “Cleopatra,” “Travels With My Aunt” and “Empire of the Sun.” He also appeared in the television miniseries “War and Remembrance.”

When his marriage to Smith, his third, foundered, his career appeared to slide. He played the title role in Billy Wilder’s “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” but the film did not do well. He began drinking heavily, fell out with Olivier and soon was playing ever smaller roles in increasingly worse films. Most recently, he had a bit part in the unsuccessful “Bonfire of the Vanities.”

But two years ago, director Adrian Nobel invited him to play Falstaff in Shakespeare’s “Henry IV.” He produced a bravura performance that was acclaimed by critics, and earned him the Laurence Olivier Best Actor Award.

Stephens’ ravaged features and raspy voice seem to have served him well in his two recent Shakespearean roles. And he has talked about how his rejection by former friend and mentor Olivier provided him with inspiration for his Lear, a character whose power, dignity and closest family have been stripped away.

Stephens recently told John Whitley of the Sunday Telegraph: “I remember being in the office with Olivier when he said, ‘I’ve got a good 10 years left and I’m going to do exactly what I want.’

“I think that’s what King Lear is saying: ‘I’ve got 10 years to have a jolly good time--never mind wives or children--I’m going to enjoy myself.’

“Of course, Olivier couldn’t get rid of his power--or more exactly, wouldn’t. Olivier’s one great fault was a paranoid jealousy of anyone whom he thought was a rival--he couldn’t bear not to be the one on top and so he clung to power.”