A Realm Divided

PBS’ “Masterpiece Theatre” kicks off its 28th season Sunday with an epic tale of love, hate, deception, madness, greed, sex, war, murder and death.

First performed in 1606, William Shakespeare’s “King Lear” is one of the greatest plays ever written. The “Masterpiece Theatre” version is adapted from London’s acclaimed 1997 Royal National Theatre production, starring Ian Holm (“Alien,” “Chariots of Fire”) as the tragic British monarch.

“People talk about ‘Lear’ not just being a play, but the play--the culmination of one’s career,” says the 66-year-old Holm, whose performance as Lear won the 1998 Olivier Award as best actor--England’s equivalent of the Tony Award.

“I don’t happen to believe that. I think I’ve got a few more years left!” he adds. “But it is a very big, daunting project and I decided I had to do it flat out. It’s a fight against madness and all the rest of it. It’s a huge role, but having said that, I really had a pretty easy time because I got on terribly well with the director and the cast. My fellow actors did at least 50% of the work for me. It makes your job so much easier.”

Inspired by an ancient British folk tale, the Bard’s “King Lear” deals with a king who makes the tragic mistake of deciding to divide his monarchy among his three daughters--Goneril (Barbara Flynn), Regan (Amanda Redman) and Cordelia (Victoria Hamilton)--based solely on their declarations of love for him. But his favorite daughter, Cordelia, refuses to compete and is banished. Lear’s violent reactions pave the path to a series of catastrophes that lead to his mental collapse.

David Burke also stars as the Earl of Kent, Lear’s friend, who is banished when he takes Cordelia’s side, but later assumes a disguise to protect Lear from the machinations of his two eldest daughters. And Timothy West plays the Earl of Gloucester, who is tricked by his illegitimate son Edmund (Finbar Lynch) into banishing his legitimate son, Edgar (Paul Rhys).

“King Lear” was adapted and directed for television by Richard Eyre, who also directed the stage play. “I couldn’t have done what I did with this production without Ian,” he says. “He’s just a phenomenal actor, I think.”

Eyre had turned down a previous offer to direct “Lear,” feeling he didn’t fully understand the play.

“In retrospect, I know I was right to delay it,” he says. “It was because of what the play is about--relationships between fathers and sons and fathers and daughters. It is about two fathers--Gloucester and Lear--and the two stories are paralleled. Both of them in a brutal way are educated into feeling for their children.”

Eyre says it wasn’t until his parents died that he could see that. “I wasn’t able to objectify my feelings for my father [until after he died],” he says. “It was only coming back to the play then that I could see what it is about and see it with the necessary clarity.”

Though Holm compares the demanding role to climbing Mt. Everest, he actually found doing the play and the TV movie “an uncomplicated journey, mentally. Physically, yes, it was tiring, especially at my age. Most Lears are a bit younger.”

Reminded that Laurence Olivier was nearly 80 when he took on Lear on TV, the actor replies: “That was sort of ‘King Olivier.’ It became a tragedy of a very old actor who was dying, frankly.”

Holm’s powerful Lear is actually based on Hungarian conductor Sir George Solti, who died last year at age 85.

“Richard had worked with him [on an opera] and he said he had never, ever come across a man of that age who had such extraordinary energy and power and drama,” Holm says. “Richard said, ‘Meet him.’ Sadly, I never did. But you don’t have to play old--old people have enormous energy and drive.”

Holm says he didn’t have to alter his stage performance for the small screen. “I always tend to be a minimalist--any opportunity to pull something in instead of expanding it, I will jump at it. Fortunately, Richard’s direction of the piece was not to fall into the trap of expanding. He pulled it further in than it was onstage, so you get a lot of close-up work and so on. It becomes really in your face. It becomes about a dysfunctional family.”

One of the virtues of doing “Lear” on television, explains Eyre, is that “television deals very well with family relationships. That is the stuff of most TV dramas. This seemed to sit very well on television, doing it in an intimate fashion and trying to build up this idea that it is all about a small family. Yes, it is about a nation, but at the heart, this is a play about a family that destroys itself.”

What Holm so admires about the play is that there is no redemption or resolution. “It’s tough for an audience [to watch],” he says. “Certainly in the theater--we did it in a small space--it really affected so many people. I was constantly asked, ‘How did you do research for the part?’ I said, ‘I have five daughters of my own.’ ”

Holm, who suffered for years from stage fright, is the first Lear in recent memory who actually goes the full monty in the classic storm scene. In the PBS version, the nudity is quite discreetly shot.

“I think it was me who suggested it,” Holm recalls. “It does specifically say in the stage directions, ‘Lear tears off his clothes.’ It is a metaphorical as well as a real disrobing. It just seemed to be kind of cathartic and necessary to be naked.”

Of course, Holm adds, “it wasn’t for that long. But I think it went with the sort of style of the piece. I just felt that we shouldn’t skimp around with little loincloths!”

“Masterpiece Theatre: King Lear” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on PBS.