New York reviewers pretty much loved Christopher Plummer's performance in the born-at-the-Stratford Festival production of King Lear that opened on the Lincoln Center stage on Thursday night.

But the praise for the production, directed by Jonathan Miller, was less than universal.

Writing in the New York Times, Ben Brantley calls Plummer's turn in the title role "the performance of a life-time" and the production "engrossing," while conceding that "no one else in the show approaches the rarified heights of Mr. Plummer."

USA Today's Elsya Gradner liked both Plummer and the production, calling the former's performance "shattering," and praising Miller's direction of the latter, calling it "well up to par," but the Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout found little to like in either, calling the show a "well-bred, largely uninvolving Lear," and accusing Plummer of "forever lapsing into bluster."

AP's Michael Kuchwara felt much the same way, calling Plummer's performance "the most compelling thing about Jonathan Miller's unsurprising, somewhat staid revival."

Meanwhile, Variety's Charles Isherwood praises Plummer's "performance of such purity and truth," but seems to have mixed feelings about the production, suggesting that Miller's direction "threatens to mute the play's force," even while he praises it for highlighting the relationship between Lear and his Fool, played by Barry MacGregor.


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