King Lear

One of William Shakespeare's greatest tragedies, King Lear tells of an aging king who decides to divide his kingdom among his three daughters according to how lavishly they profess their love for him. When his youngest and most devoted daughter, Cordelia, refuses to flatter him, Lear disowns her in a rage — a catastrophic misjudgment that sets his downfall in motion.

As Lear's scheming elder daughters, Goneril and Regan, strip him of power and dignity, the old king descends into madness upon a storm-swept heath. A parallel story of the Earl of Gloucester and his sons, the loyal Edgar and the villainous Edmund, mirrors Lear's blindness to those who truly love him. Betrayal, cruelty, and grief mount toward one of the most devastating conclusions in all of drama.

A towering meditation on power, family, folly, and human suffering, King Lear remains among the most performed and studied works of the English stage.