Orson Welles would first appear on American television in the Omnibus production of King Lear. This was back in the day where television was thought of as an instructional and culture enlightening medium, but it was also a live medium. It may not be the best Lear, but classic television is always welcome.
King Lear (Orson Welles) is old and ready to retire from the throne of England. He is going to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters, Goneril (Beatrice Straight), Regan (Margaret Phillips), and Cordelia (Natasha Parry). He tests their devotion by asking each to tell of their love to give the winner the largest section of the kingdom.
The older daughters give flattering answers, but Cordelia says she has no such words to describe her father. This angers him and he disowns her. Cordelia was being courted by the Duke of Burgundy (Fred Sadoff) and the King of France (Wesley Addy) and when they hear of her falling out with Lear and is without lands Burgundy withdraws his offer. The King of France still wants her hand so she accompanies him back to France.
It doesn’t take long for Lear to discover that he’s made a foolish decision in disowning Cordelia as his other two daughters turn against him. He looses his mind and wanders the land with his Fool (Alan Badel) and will discover that his decisions will lead to doom and misery.
Omnibus was the award winning television program that aired from 1952-1956 on CBS (it aired on ABC from 1956-1957, on NBC from 1957-1961, and even had a short revival as a series of specials on ABC in 1981).
Hosted by Alastair Cooke the goal of the program was to provide education to the masses by exposing them to the arts and served as a prototype to public television. Who could be more artistic than William Shakespeare and certainly the genius of Orson Welles could do the bard properly? Yes to the first part of that and maybe to the second.
Even the serfiest of serfs would agree that culture equals Shakespeare. Where the production might falter a bit is that it was live television and also being television it feels confined. Most of the production seems cramped and famously Welles’ Lear mustache comes off in the storm scene. Since it is live television you can’t do much about such a wardrobe malfunction.
Welles also is hidden under stage makeup that looks pretty strange, but this was his way as he was apt to hide his nose under such. Barring those niggles, the acting does shine through that this does make an interesting footnote in the works of Shakespeare and Welles. Although, as it was television, the play is shortened to fit in the running time provided. Luckily they did convince the sponsors to allow them to do it without commercial interruptions.
Fans of either famous personages would do well to seek out this show. I’m a fan of vintage television productions and this set nicely compliments the grand release of Studio One shows that E1 put out a time ago.
King Lear is presented in fullscreen. Special features include the 5 minute “Backstage Preview” from 1953 that aired on the previous show before Lear aired on Omnibus. The 10 minute “Dr. Frank Baxter on the Globe Theater” (1953) has the academic discussing Shakespeare’s venue.
The 43 minute “Yale Shakespeare Festival (1953)” features Cooke doing a live remote from the festival (Burgess Meredith intros from the studio) and has a portion of a performance. The 43 minute “Walter Kerr on Staging Shakespeare (1955)” shows how to stage a scene from the bard. The booklet also contains text commentary from director Peter Brook and actor/Welle’s biographer Simon Callow.
Although it suffers some of the hazards of live television, this adaptation of King Lear has much to offer. Fans of vintage television, Shakespeare, or Orson Welles will be delighted.
It’s a rarity as I don’t think the show has been seen since it originally aired in 1953 and includes a nice set of special features. It makes me hunger for more Omnibus shows. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!
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