We watched the magnificent masterful theater artist Ian McKellen last night in his one-man show on the streaming channel National Theatre at Home…a wonderful thing to have if you love the theater and grew up in the theater as my husband and I did….. IAN MCKELLEN ONSTAGE, a one-man ,two hour plus event, he devised in celebration of his 80th year on the boards….
……i don’t remember the last time i was so emotionally impacted, as i watched this astounding actor unfold his life before us, from his childhood on, and once again watched him embrace his work in so many Shakespearean roles on so many celebrated stages…it was like watching the history of modern British theater unfold before us, along with whimsical tales of his childhood, his growing up, his mentors, his coming out as gay, his shame and sadness at having done so so late in life…reminding us that in Britain, you could go to jail for being homosexual for so long….recent shameful history….
So McKellen’s life unfolded in sync with his treasured years spent on stages and in front of cameras all over the world.
As i wrote above, i was seeing him bring to life many of his Shakespeare roles once again, because years ago I was privileged, as part of the NYC theatre community, to be invited to a Lincoln Center Theater dress rehearsal of Ian McKellens one-man evening of Shakespeare, and so i sat with my colleagues, my treasured and gifted colleagues, experiencing this genius’ approach to explicating and breathing life into some of the greatest theatrical roles ever written. I have never forgotten that evening…i wrote extensively about it in the journal i always carried with me, and even wrote poems about the evening.
There are certain reasons theater is valuable in the world…in our civilization …and what Ian McKellen has to offer us shows us so many of those reasons.
William Shakespeare magically appeared in our world, filled with a sort of unique power to hold a mirror up to our eyes so we could see ourselves more deeply and more clearly.
Blessed creativity- revered through the centuries , much like the Holy Bible- who can explain the power of a body of writing? Who can explain why it captured the minds and souls of human beings in countless languages, infinite translations, many many countries, through decades and decades and decades of human existence? Why Shakespeare? Why that poetry ? Why that complex and infinitely interesting combination of ideas and language and insights ?
How to explain it?
When watching a brilliance like McKellen, i suddenly realized, one does need no explanation …one only needs to partake of it, to witness it, to immerse oneself in it and be grateful.