King Lear at Brooklyn Academy of Music

There are Shakespeare kings, and then there is Lear—rain-raving madman, dad with daughter issues, and a role that actors wait a lifetime to play. In this bold offering from RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran and the Royal Shakespeare Company (King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings, 2016 Winter/Spring), inimitable Olivier Award-winning actor Sir Antony Sher (Falstaff in Henry IV, Parts I & II, 2016 Winter/Spring) rises to that teetering throne, giving a career-defining performance as the all-too-trusting monarch in the twilight of his sanity. Beneath a pagan sun that gives way to a bleak winter, Sher’s Lear growls, inhabiting the self-searching conscience of a king who—after unwisely divesting his lands to the wrong people—causes heads to roll.

Authors

• William Shakespeare

Tony Awards and Nominations for King Lear