Seeing more of Sir Ian on the Guthrie's thrust stage

Sir Ian McKellen puts his manhood on display at the Guthrie in "King Lear."

By C.J., Star Tribune

Last update: October 12, 2007 - 2:41 PM

Sir Ian McKellen puts his manhood on display at the Guthrie in "King Lear."

Not everybody was glad to see him.

"It was the most exhibitionist piece of theater," said Anne Tennant, a regular on FM107, who normally discusses trends in celebrity plastic surgery, although she is not a doctor. On Thursday she played the role of radio theater critic and was very funny, if not amused, by what she saw of the star of the Royal Shakespeare Co.'s "King Lear" on opening night.

Lear has dementia, for pete's sake, so inappropriate disrobing is not unexpected, although Anne was among residents of this sometimes provincial hamlet who was shocked.

"He's on the thrust stage. He's right there in the faces of the [local blue bloods with famous names] who sit in the front row of every opening night. You are getting a lot more personal with this very famous actor than I am sure any of those geriatrics thought they would ever be," Anne told me. "He is probably the greatest Shakespearean actor we've got and he completely derailed the climax of 'King Lear' by exposing himself. And not only does he expose himself but when he pulls his shift up, he does a 360."

Now that's staging!

"What was astonishing was not only that he spent five minutes rotating, very carefully, very slowly, with stops at every 45 degrees. He would stop and display. It was five minutes of Sir Richard in your face. As he's rotating I realize with a shock that he is considerably [better endowed] than anybody I've ever met in my bedroom career. I turned to the fellow who took me and my eyes are HUGE. [My date gave] me a look that said: If you dare say anything, I'll never invite you out again."

At this point in the interview, Anne began using language that, while not pornographic, was still too blue for a family newspaper.

"No, he wasn't even relaxed. He was nowhere near relaxed. He was happy to see the audience. Now whether or not we were happy to see that much of him... The audience was pretty silent. What it did was it really distracted from the moment in the play where we're supposed to be considering that Lear has lost sovereignty over not just his kingdom but over his mind. Instead what we had was the sovereignty of Sir Richard."

Sir Richard is not the name she used on the radio station.

"... at one startling interval, without clothes," is how Strib theater critic Rohan Preston delicately, discreetly mentions the moment that NPR and gay.com, among others, made note of when McKellen performed in other cities.

"You can't not notice it," said Guthrie PR woman Melodie Bahan. "It's in the text. Lear is ripping at his garments. Ian took it directly from the text to mean that he completely disrobes. One of the reviews in London said he was every inch the King, which I thought was brilliant."

And printable.

C.J. is at 612.332.TIPS or cj@startribune.com. E-mailers, please state a subject -- "Hello" doesn't count. Attachments are not opened, so don't even try. More of her attitude can be seen on Fox 9 Thursday mornings.

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