LEAR at Staatstheater Stuttgart

LEAR
‘I want to inherit more than debts and a few traumas.’
 

Director Karin Lind talks to her father on the phone. ‘Are you crying, Dad? No storm
will knock us down. We can cope with anything.’ 
The celebrated director Thomas Lind is due to stage William Shakespeare's King
Lear. But is now in hospital following a serious heart attack. To safeguard his legacy
she, his daughter, must take over his last great production. During the stormy nights
of rehearsals, she becomes immersed in the story of old King Lear and with it, her
troubled relationship with her own father. Shakespeare tells the story of Lear, the
once mighty King, now old and weak, in which, to be reassured of his daughters'
love, requires his daughters to declare the very nature of their affection for him prior
to the dividing of his inheritance. The daughter who expresses her love for her royal
father correctly (as he sees it) will be rewarded with the greatest part of his kingdom.
The youngest daughter immediately refuses such competition: she loves her father
Lear purely and simply as a child loves its parents - no more, no less. But this is in no
way what the enfeebled, great monarch wants to hear. Disappointed and angry, the
old king rejects his youngest daughter. Faced with the intensely pertinent content of
Shakespeare’s King Lear, Karin is cast into doubt she reflects: her father, dauntingly
tyrannical in the past but now, terminally ill… just exactly how much does she owe
him? 

In his adaptation of Lear, based on William Shakespeare's 1606 tragedy, Falk Richter
brings out the archaic images and poetic power of the classic and transfers them to
the present day. How much suffering has been caused by the hubris of our fathers?
How do we learn to be mindful and renounce our own privileges? Richter focusses on
people who must question themselves anew on the possibility of self-knowledge,
responsibility and forgiveness in the face of downfall. We are the product of our
environment, our families and parents, they say. But to what extent does the contract
between generations represent an inescapable legacy of our existences?

Press materials Staatstheater Stuttgart - Translation: artsintowords.com