One wild-haired Shakespearean graybeard gave way to another wild-haired Shakespearean graybeard Thursday night, March 4, when Christopher Plummer's King Lear took command of Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theatre, until recently the SRO home of Kevin Kline's John Falstaff and the Henry IV company. These two characters never crossed paths in the works of the Bard, but don't be surprised if they don't come up in the same Best Actor category at Tony time in a few months — a first for New York theatre.

Mad old King Lear, with his maddening daughters and their murderous husbands, falls somewhere between a touchstone and a watergauge for great actors—the valedictory stop—and Plummer made the most of it. Not only did he do his own acting, he did his own hair, which flared out stiffly at the sides in a foolish Pappy Yokum flourish. It takes a lot to camouflage Plummer's pronounced, career-long, man-of-distinction mien, but this 'do did the job quite effectively—a modest miracle of backcombing, slight hair extensions creatively matted and, of course, hairspray—and his art took it from there.

Plummer took a bow for both at the fancy first-night reception that followed the opening. It was held on Avery Fisher Hall's orchestra level, and made for an elegant, eminently commutable stroll past the pond which separates the two Lincoln Center structures.

On the Yank side of the ledger were many of the family of artists whose works have marked the stages of the Beaumont and the Mitzi Newhouse: playwrights Wendy Wasserstein, A.R. Gurney Jr. (whose Big Bill currently occupies the Newhouse under Lear), Alfred Uhry, John Guare; composer Stephen Flaherty; director-choreographers Susan Stroman and Kathleen Marshall; actors Michael Cumpsty, Merle Louise (Carver's mom in Kiss of the Spider Woman), Cherry Jones. Down Under's Tony-winning Zoe Caldwell represented both countries, being the director of Plummer's Macbeth and the widow of Canadian-born producer, Robert Whitehead. Auxiliary glitter: Plummer's daughter, Amanda; Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and a sunburst of Shuberts, Gerald Schoenfeld and Philip Smith.

"He's a thrill to watch in rehearsal," Carver said of Plummer. Lear is the first time they have acted together on stage—they have a previous relationship on film, father and son in Atom Egoyan's Ararat—and it is the first time New York theatregoers have seen Carver without a song in his heart. He last appeared at Playwrights Horizons as the musical Marcel Proust in My Life With Albertine, and he was last on the Beaumont stage as Parade's Tony nominated lynch victim. His Tony-winning Broadway bow was in Kiss.