'Lear' Without Leering

By Lisa de Moraes
Thursday, January 8, 2009

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 7

Sadly, we won't get to see a fully, frontally nude Sir Ian McKellen during PBS's broadcast of "King Lear" in March.

But the decision to cut the nudity was made not by PBS but rather by Trevor Nunn, director of the Royal Shakespeare Company's acclaimed staging of the Shakespearean drama, a public TV suit said.

With a straight face.

The nude-scene question came up about halfway through the Q&A session for the show, which was a shame because we had two bucks riding on it being the first question.

It had seemed like easy money, given that it had been the very first question put to PBS CEO Paula Kerger during her Q&A session at the summer TV Press Tour.

PBS is broadcasting a restaging of the production, which made just three U.S. stops -- New York, Minneapolis and Los Angeles -- when it toured in '07. Tickets in all locations sold out months before the play arrived, and some were scalped at prices approaching $3,000 a pop.

And, yes, in the stage version, during the famous scene in which the king descends into madness, McKellen (who might be best known for his "Lord of the Rings" and "X-Men" roles) stripped off his royal trappings.

"I thought this would come up," McKellen said giddily during the "Lear" Q&A session, his eyes lighting up.

"Let's have a good look at you," he said to the critic who'd asked the question.

The nude bits, McKellen said, were "discreetly avoided" in the broadcast production "because there might be some PBS rules," though he insisted it was absolutely Shakespeare's intent that Lear at least start removing his clothes in that scene.

The actor noted that the other instance in which the production was censored was Singapore, where "it was not allowed" for him to take his clothes off. In both cases, the actor noted, it was still okay to show someone being blinded by having their eyes removed, "but was inappropriate to show a penis."

That is when "Great Performances" exec producer David Horn jumped in to insist that the decision had not been PBS's but Nunn's, who was not there to confirm that assertion.

* * *

Paula Kerger now thinks the conversion to digital TV is being mishandled by the feds.

Well, yeah . . . duh.

Stepping up to the podium on the very first day of I Think I'll Just Take Some of These Dinner Rolls Home to Feed My Hungry Children Winter TV Press Tour 2009, the usually measured, mild-mannered PBS chief vented about the whole digital-conversion mess.

Specifically, she blasted the federal government for running out of money for the coupons it has been issuing. The coupons help people defray the cost of the converter boxes they need to continue receiving over-the-air programs after analog broadcasting ends Feb. 17. After that date, if your TV set is not digital and/or hooked up to cable or satellite and you don't have a converter box, you're outta luck -- no TV signal.

As of last month, nearly 7 percent of the 114 million U.S. households with televisions remained unready for the transition, according to Nielsen.

"I'm very disheartened to hear that with a month before the deadline, the federal government has run out of money to help citizens purchase digital converter boxes," Kerger told The Reporters Who Cover Television, who were momentarily stunned at her outburst and then began typing furiously on their laptops.

Congress had set a $1.34 billion funding limit for the coupon program, which has come and gone. On Monday, the Commerce Department said people seeking help via coupons are being put on a waiting list, which I'm sure is such a comfort.

"Consumers need those coupons, and they need them now!" Kerger ranted. "To put them on a waiting list, which is what is happening, is inexcusable," she raved, adding, "I really call upon Congress and [the National Telecommunications and Information Administration] to . . . fix this as soon as possible." NTIA is the division of the Commerce Department that is the brain trust of the whole coupon program.

"At a time when people are making very hard economic choices in their households, and many are choosing free over-the-air television and are closing down their cable accounts . . . we need to make sure every household that can be connected to a box is connected to a box."

* * *

In other PBS news, Ken Burns gets another at-bat on his film "Baseball," which is among the Burns-produced documentaries that have done so much to anger minority groups whose names do not begin with "African American." Latino community watchdogs are especially incensed over Burns's projects "Baseball," "Jazz" and, most particularly, "The War."

The addition, titled "The Tenth Inning," will coincide with a rebroadcast of the original nine-part documentary that debuted in 1994, PBS announced.

And "The Tenth Inning" will "follow baseball's trajectory from 1993 through 2008, beginning where the original series left off." PBS says the new bits will feature revealing interviews with -- what a shock! -- players-turned-managers Felipe Alou and Joe Torre, and players Omar Vizquel and Ichiro Suzuki.

* * *

Five hours into Winter TV Press Tour 2009 and the savaging of NBC has begun.

Richard Belzer, cast member of NBC's "Law & Order: SVU," is onstage for a Q&A session for PBS's Feb. 4 broadcast of "George Carlin: The Mark Twain Prize." He's asked about the future of his series, now that NBC has announced it's turning over its 10 p.m. hour, Monday through Friday, for a new Jay Leno-hosted Not the "Tonight Show."

"It's a terrible, terrible trend for network television," Belzer said of the 10 p.m. strategy. "It's a network that is desperate . . . the last gasp of a dying network that could turn out to be brilliant financially, but in terms of [Hollywood scripted-drama writers, producers and actors], I think it's a tragedy, frankly."

Belzer got knicker-knotted when one TV critic asked him whether NBC wanted "SVU" writers to make the show less "skeevy" so as to make it better suited to air earlier than 10.

"What do you think the S stands for? 'Skeevy Victims Unit'? You are a man of words -- good choice!" Belzer sneered.