Ian McKellen, Kylie Minogue Are ‘Honoured’ By the Queen

Australian pop gal Kylie Minogue and Sir Ian McKellen, the bankable British thespian who recently starred in a production of King Lear at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, were named to Queen Elizabeth II’s New Year Honours list. Mr. McKellen was elevated to Companion of Honour, the order of 65 leading members of the arts, Read More

Shaky and Naked on the Heath

The achievement of Ian McKellen’s King Lear is that he’s the first I’ve seen to fully convey the horribleness of monstrous old age. At 68, the very fit Mr. McKellen needs all his phenomenal stamina to scale the peaks of the exhausting role. But was ever there a “ruin’d piece of nature” like this demented, Read More

Wong Kar-wai’s Visual Magic: A Tribute to Feminine Beauty

Wong Kar-wai’s 2046, from his own screenplay (in Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese with English subtitles), is quite simply an incomparably sublime work of art, a triumph of lyricism over narrative in the cinema, and the most exquisite homage to the beauty of women it has ever been my privilege to witness on the screen. Yet Read More

The Original George and Martha Come to the Great White Way

Notes toward enjoying August Strindberg’s grotesque tragicomedy or marital blood sport, Dance of Death, starring Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren as Edgar and Alice in perfect, abusive harmony:

You won’t want to miss these two great actors at the top of their game, that’s for sure. But my surprise in seeing the renowned play for Read More