König Lear (King Lear)

In a capricious act the moody ruler decides that he will abdicate the throne from one day to the next and pass on his inheritance to the next generation. He plans to divide the kingdom between his three daughters. The only condition is that they should publicly declare their unconditional love for him. A contest of flattery ensues in which the youngest, Cordelia, refuses to take part. Disappointed by his favourite daughter, Lear banishes Cordelia and hands over his kingdom to his two elder daughters, Goneril and Regan. In parallel to these events, Lear’s fate is mirrored in the house of Gloucester: here Gloucester’s illegitimate son hatches a wicked plot against his legitimate brother Edgar to secure his father’s inheritance. In both families what starts as a succession dispute develops into a tragedy of linguistic and scenic power almost unrivalled among Shakespeare’s canon. As a king with no power and no land, cast out by his own children, all Lear is left with is an escape into madness and the darkness of the approaching storm – humanity and nature become one, the storm becomes a mirror of Lear’s inner pain and at the same time is a harbinger of what Lear and the world have yet to face in Shakespeare’s play.  

»’tis the time's plague when madmen lead the blind.«

Following »Romeo and Juliet« resident director Elsa-Sophie Jach now directs another great Shakespeare drama – an unremitting generational conflict that unfolds at the highest political level and whose costs are borne by the innocent.