The Palace Theatre in Cambridge Square is a sort of halfway house on the ambitious tour which Sir John Gielgud is undertaking at the head of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company now presenting "Much Ado About Nothing" and "King Lear." Already the players have appeared in Vienna, Zurich, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague, and when their season at the Palace finishes on September 17th, they will go back to the Continent to give performances in Berlin, Hamburg, Oslo and Copenhagen before returning to visit six major cities in the United Kingdom. Finally there is to be a short season at Stratford-upon-Avon. Qielgud has been deeply moved by memorable receptions in Austria, Holland and Switzerland. Neither he nor Peggy Ashcroft had previously played in Vienna, but they made new reputations overnight and could easily have stayed twice as long playing to capacity audiences. After every performance people in the stalls surged down to the front and continued to applaud most-enthusiastically until the company had taken at least fifteen curtains. That was not all; when Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft would leave the theatre by the stage door best part of an hour later, they would be greeted by several hundred people, waiting to clap and cheer them as they stepped into their car.

Six embassies sent representatives to the opening performance in Vienna, and at a reception afterwards Gielgud was amazed to hear a Russian guest observe that one of the earlier scenes of "Much Ado About Nothing" had been cut. No one else had noticed it even in London! So much for Russian thoroughness and devotion to the theatre.
The Continental critics were a little bewildered by two such dissimilar productions of classics being presented by a company from Shakespeare's birthplace. There is nothing in common between the picturesque, more or less conventional production of "Much Ado About Nothing" and the bleak, modernistic presentation of "King Lear." Those who expected the plays to be staged and acted according to a British tradition—a definite style which might be regarded as the English equivalent of the Comedie Francaise—were completely baffled. On that account they praised the particular performances more enthusiastically than the production in general. One influential critic asked in print "Where is the producer?"

Even in London, where Gielgud's enchanting direction of "Much Ado About Nothing" is considered the last word in Shakespeare comedy, George Devine's experimental production of "King Lear" aroused a storm of controversy. The fantastic setting and costumes by the Japanese artist Isamu Noguchi have been divorced from historical and decorative associations so that the universal and mythical quality of the story may be clear. An attempt has been made to present the places and the characters in a very simple manner to enable the play to come to life through the words and the acting.

To Gielgud's astonishment most of the London critics concerned themselves entirely with the decor. They had neither eyes nor ears for any other aspect of the production. He naturally expected a great deal of heated discussion and was quite prepared for a number of people to condemn the staging in no uncertain terms, but he was not prepared for the interpretation of the play to pass practically unnoticed.

On the evidence of the first-night press no one would guess Gielgud had completely restudied his part. His interpretation differs from the Lear he played at the Old Vic in 1931 and 1940 and at Stratford in 1950. He is now convinced that Lear is just a stubborn, obstinate and difficult old man, neither a romantic nor a saintly figure. His earlier interpretations had a certain nobility about them, but Gielgud has now arrived at different conclusions as the result of studying the play for the fourth time. He sees Lear as a victim, but the victim of his own tyranny; only when he has suffered does he realize what the world is really like, but even after he has been purged through suffering, he still does not see life through the eyes of a noble being. Because Gielgud refuses to cheat and play the old man as a sympathetic figure, his performance is in striking contrast to the sentimentalized characterizations favoured by the great Victorian actors. In his opinion the play is a biting comment on the unreason of old age, and unless Lear is regarded as a sinner and a tyrant there is no tragedy in his fall. Perhaps much critical comment would have been written about this new interpretation of Lear, had Gielgud remained true to the Bardic tradition and played the tragedy in the shadow of Stonehenge.

(Theatre World, Sept. 1955)

1. a sort of half-way house— In the time of the stagecoaches a half-way house was a resting place approximately in the middle of a journey.
2. overnight—in a single night; cf. The weather changed overnight—it was quite different in the morning from what it was the evening before.
3. to surge—here: to crowd
4. the fantastic setting and costumes have been divorced from historical and decorative associations — in his fantastic setting and costumes the designer has broken with the conventional reflection of history in the scenery and costumes
5. in no uncertain terms — categorically
6. the Bardic tradition — a bard is a poet or singer. Shakespeare is often referred to as the bard of Avon. The Bardic tradition is the traditional way of presenting Shakespeare's plays.
7. Stonehenge — a prehistoric structure on Salisbury Plain, England