Because a little Gogol goes a long way

NPR aired a story this morning on the Brooklyn Academy of Music's classical theater season, which includes plays by Ibsen, Gogol, and Shakespeare, and features such big-name draws as Fiona Shaw and Alan Rickman (who played Petunia Dursley and Severus Snape, respectively), Geoffrey Rush (Pirates of the Caribbean's Barbossa), and Derek Jacobi (of I, Claudius and Brother Cadfael fame). The quality of these productions is such that even I, a person who views depressing theater about as enthusiastically as a visit to the dentist, would probably feel obliged to shell out the money for tickets.

...happily, they're all in New York, so I have been spared. Instead, I suggest listening to the article above, which allows you to hear a few spectacular snippets of the actors reading their lines. It's way cheaper, and that's about all the King Lear I can handle this early in the week.