The Fall of the House of Lear

Lear rides in on an emotional avalanche, bearing with him perhaps the greatest of Shakespeare’s tragedies. An aloof leader learns the truth about his place in the hearts of kith and kin and lashes out with the fury of a scorned king; his rage launching events that spin out of control with increasing speed. The void left in his wake offers fertile feeding ground for the power-hungry, and a graveyard for those who oppose his whims. But within that maelstrom lives some of the Bard’s most moving verse, offering moments of sparkling oasis where hope finds its place to shine. A parable about wisdom that comes not with age, but with empathy; a deeply relevant classic best seen under the sheltering stars. Running August 9 - September 28.

Featuring Brian Mani, La Shawn Banks, Nathan Barlow, David Daniel, Jim DeVita, Rasell Holt, Chiké Johnson, Jessica Ko, Josh Krause, Samantha Newcomb, James Ridge, Nancy Rodriguez, Ronald Román-Meléndez, Triney Sandoval

Contains adult themes. Please contact the Box Office at 608-588-2361, or email [email protected] for specifics.

Summary

Shakespeare's tragic masterpiece returns, as a King is undone by his own vanity when he asks his daughters to sing his praises, and harshly punishes the only one of them who cares enough about him to tell the truth. Lear's act of selfish folly sets his kingdom on a path toward betrayal, war and unspeakable loss from which few will emerge unscathed.

Casting subject to change

King Lear - Portable Prologue (Apple Podcasts)

King Lear - Portable Prologue (Spotify)

APT's tempestuous 'King Lear' conjures up a perfect storm
Rob Thomas, The Cap Times

Villains By Necessity: A Review of "King Lear" at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin
Mary Wisniewski, NewCity Stage

Tell me you love me
Linda Falkenstein, Isthmus

A skillful and unsentimental 'King Lear' at American Players Theatre
Stephanie Kulke, Chicago Stage and Screen

Director's Note

“We wish that we could pass this play over and say nothing about it. All that we can say must fall far short of the subject; or even of what we ourselves conceive of it. To attempt to give a description of the play itself or of its effect upon the mind, is mere impertinence: yet we must say something. — It is then the best of all Shakespeare’s plays, for it is the one in which he was the most in earnest. He was here fairly caught in the web of his own imagination. The passion which he has taken as his subject is that which strikes its root deepest into the human heart; of which the bond is the hardest to be unloosed; and the cancelling and tearing to pieces of which gives the greatest revulsion to the frame. This depth of nature, this force of passion, this tug and war of the elements of our being, this firm faith in filial piety . . . this is what Shakespeare has given, and what nobody else but he could give.”
William Hazlitt
Characters of Shakespeare's Plays (1817)

"The power of Edgar's disturbing statement -

'We that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long'
Edgar - King Lear 5.3

- a statement that rings like a half-open question – is that it carries no moral overtones at all. He does not suggest for one moment that youth or age, seeing or not seeing, are in any way superior, inferior, more desirable or less desirable one than the other. In fact we are compelled to face a play which refuses all moralizing – a play which we begin to see not as a narrative any longer, but as a vast, complex, coherent poem designed to study the power and the emptiness of nothing – the positive and negative aspects latent in the zero.”
Peter Brook
The Empty Space (1968)

William Hazlitt describes King Lear perfectly; Peter Brook gives it a point-of-view: “[a] poem designed to study the power and emptiness of nothing.” It’s as if Brook
were describing Samuel Becket’s plays: Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Happy Days, Krapp’s Last Tape . . .

"Never, never, never, never, never."
Lear - King Lear 5.3

- Tim Ocel, Director of King Lear